


Too Cold in Here

by theressomanyusernames



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Thanksgiving Weekend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theressomanyusernames/pseuds/theressomanyusernames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sollux has a conversation with his roommate for the first time, even though they've lived together for four months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You’re just a little drunk. You’re not too drunk to pay attention to the documentary playing on your laptop. You’re also not too drunk to look outside your window and realize that it’s snowing. You’re just drunk enough to have your vision blurring a little and your fingertips feel warm. Not drunk enough, you think, taking another swig straight out of the wine bottle.

Why’d you even get this stuff anyways? It’s cheap shit that tastes like ass. Maybe another hour and you’ll be too far gone to care. That’s the plan, anyways.

You stretch out on the top bunk, taking a moment to stare out the window. You hope that it stops soon, because you want your friends to get back on time. Kar flew all the way back to Maine for this weekend, and if the snow keeps going he’s going to have to stay there for another few days. Fef said she’d drive up and visit you Sunday, but you don’t want her to put herself in any danger just to see your sorry ass. You take another drink.

You know, you’d even kind of like Sollux’s company right about now. If you could call it company, really. He hasn’t said more than a few words to you since move in day in August.

“I’m Eridan,”

“I’m Sollux,” Thollux, more like. You laughed at him a little bit.

“Stay out of my shit, and I’ll stay out of  yours, alright?”

You nodded in agreement.

You have stayed out of each other’s shit quite well, actually. But it’s kind of nice when he’s sitting at the desk tapping away at the keys on his laptop. It’s comforting, watching him work so hard and all. He falls asleep at the desk chair a lot, head smashed on his keyboard. You think about moving the guy into his bunk sometimes, seeing as you could easily pick him up, but you never do. He’d probably yell at you. Instead you always just save his work for him and shut off his computer.

He looks just a little bit cold there when he’s sleeping face down on the desk. Your room is always cold, and it’s getting worse in the winter months. Sometimes you cover him up with the quilt that Fef made you for your dorm. A purple fringe thing that has waves embroidered into it all over. Every time you give it to him, you find it folded neatly at the end of your bed the next morning. You wish that he didn’t wake up so early.

Come to think of it, God damn, you were a gonnor from the minute you met him.

You’d like if he was here right now, instead of home having a great time with his family.

He calls his little brother every other night. You wish your skeevy brother cared about you that much.

Ironically, your brother’s probably the only one in your family that celebrated Thanksgiving. It was probably with instant stuffing and an equally skeevy girl, but you still kind of hate him for it.

You take another sip out of the bottle and wipe at your face with the sleeves of your sweatshirt. Are you crying? You can’t be crying. You started drinking to forget about all this shit and watch Food Inc. You cannot be seriously crying right now.

You think the sweatshirt belongs to your lispy roommate. Not like you’re being a creep or anything, but all your clothes are dirty and he won’t be home until Sunday. In fact, since you share a closet, you kind of picked the grubby yellow thing out by accident. You were already a lil drunk.

When the door opens, you jump a bit. Mostly, it’s to grab your comforter to cover yourself up. You’d rather the intruder not see you crying alone in your boxers and roommate’s sweatshirt.

“Eridan, what the hell?” yells Sollux, “why are you here?” He’s wearing this knit little bee hat that makes him look kind of like a mentally challenged Holden Caulfield. He’s not wearing his weird 3D glasses, so you can see his mismatched eyes clearly by the light of your laptop. Blue and brown. When he wears the glasses, the tint makes them both look kind of purple. You have no idea why he wears those glasses.

“I’d ask the same of you, asshole” you reply, not really sober enough to think of a lie, but not drunk enough to tell him the truth.

“My dad sent me back early. He didn’t want me driving in all the snow we’re supposed to get tomorrow,” He shrugs off his blue coat, placing it  on the bottom bunk of your beds. He places his backpack on the floor by the desk, and you think that he’s probably going to pull out his laptop and start coding again. You don’t want him to do that. You want him to talk to you with his nasally lisp and all until you feel a little better.

So you turn off your laptop. “Where’d ya get that hat?” you ask. You’re not the best conversationalist, granted, but you really don’t want to be alone tonight.

He turns to look at you, a little bit taken aback. “Brother gave it to me.”

Knowing it was a gift from a little kid, you kind of feel bad thinking that it made him look mentally challenged. “I always wished I had a lil’ brother.” You sort of stumble on your w sounds, and slur your words together at this point. “I just got an older brother, n’ see, he’s a real sack a’ shit.”

Sollux rubs the back of his neck, replying, “Mituna is older than me.”

Oh.

Oh.

Now you feel really bad about the Holden Caulfield thing, and you thank God you were still sober enough to keep that to yourself.

“Sorry,” you mutter.

He doesn’t respond and pulls out his laptop.

You take another sip of cheap wine.

“Eridan, are you drunk?” you hear him ask.

You nod.

He turns to you, asking somewhat apprehensively, “have you eaten today?”

You shake your head. You also attempt to take off his sweatshirt underneath your comforter, because damn is it really creepy that you’re wearing it. Even if you picked it out drunk, you weren't that drunk and you know you picked it out on purpose you creepy bastard.

He pulls what looks to be the last of Thanksgiving dinner out of his backpack. All of it is squashed together in two little tupperware containers. “My mom gave me this to last two nights, but we might as well finish it off now.” He crosses over to the miniature microwave that the two of you share.

“I can’t accept that,” you slur.

The microwave beeps, and he switches the containers. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m really tired so just accept my damn kindness.”

When both containers are done heating, he pulls out a fork for each and climbs up to your bunk. You shift the sweatshirt under your pillow in hopes that he doesn’t see it.

He crosses his legs, and thrusts a dish of Thanksgiving leftovers into your arms.

“Eat it, asswipe. Then you can get as shitfaced as you want,” he mutters, “hell, I might even join you.”

“There’s always room for one more person on the self loathin’ express, Sol,” you say back, drawing out the ‘L’ sound in his name a little too long to be completely okay.

He gestures to the bottle of wine leaning against your lap. “Are you seriously not even using a glass?”

“What would be the point a’ that? ‘S just me here.” You shove a forkful of mashed potatoes into your mouth.

You’ve never had a Thanksgiving dinner before. You suppose, since it’s black Friday and your eating leftovers out of a scorching hot tupperware container, you still technically haven’t. You think that you’ll count this, though, because the food tastes like home should. You wonder what your roommate would think about you kissing him.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you weren’t going home for Thanksgiving,” he asks you.

He probably wouldn’t like it if you kissed him. He gives off such a straight guy kind of vibe. Lord, what a shame.

“I dunno, family doesn’t celebrate it,” you respond lazily. You look past him. You look at the way the moon lights up the snow on your windowsill. You bet if you kissed your roommate he’d make some sort of point about avoiding you. Like, more than he does now.

“You’re missing out, then. My family would have loved to have another guest. I mean, if you wanted. We always have guests on Thanksgiving.”

“You don’ even talk to me for the four months you’ve known me n’ then you tell me that I should be meetin’ your family? You’re crazy, Sol.” There it is again, the extra long ‘L’ sound.

“I just don’t like to see anybody spending the holidays alone is all. You’ve got somewhere to go for Christmas, right?”

You nod furiously. “Yeah, Fef- m’ best friend from high school, her name’s Feferi, she wants me to spend it with her n’ her family.” That was a pretty complicated thought for someone in your state. You’re pretty proud of yourself for getting it out, actually.

He’s silent for a second. “Not your family?”

“Fef’s is nicer to me. Besides my parents ain’t too big on Christmas either. N’ I don’t think Cronus is comin’ home on Christmas.” You trail off, looking out the window again, “Cronus- m’ brother- he hasn’t come home in a while.”

“Would you go home if your brother did? I thought you told me he was a ‘sack of shit’.” He makes little air quotes, mocking you.

You prop your head up on your hands. “Oh don’ get me wrong, he totally is. I miss him, though. N’ I wanna know if he’s doin’ okay n’ everything, since I ain’t heard from him since I was still in high school.”

“I’m sorry, Eridan,” he says a little sadly, “I don’t really know what to say to that.”

“S’okay. I just kinda wish he left an Indication” you trip over that word a little- indication, indication, “I wish he left an indication about whether or not he was still alive or somethin’. Or I wish he’d write me a letter to let me know what he was doin’.”

“A letter?” he says mockingly, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

You smile. “I like gettin’ letters. That’s enough of my shitty family, though. Tell me about your brother. You guys seem close as balls.”

He spoons some stuffing into his mouth. The homemade kind, too. With his mouth full, he says, “Mituna’s twenty. Smartest person I ever met. You know he played chess with me this weekend, and damn, he had me in checkmate within 10 turns. I kid you not, he’s a genius.”

You nod at him, hoping he continues. You like watching his lips move. They’re a little chapped from the cold, but you like the way that they’re shaped.

He swallows and adds, “he loves shopping. He likes giving people gifts and stuff. Black Friday is his favorite day in the entire year. Me and TZ- best friend growing up- we went with him this morning, and he had everything mapped out. He dragged us out shopping at 1 a.m. this year. I got a lot of video games that I left at home, but he bought me some CDs that I brought with me,” he laughs, “and also this dumb hat.”

“It ain’t dumb,” you reply quickly.

“No, it’s pretty fucking dumb. I love it, though. You can love something even if it’s dumb.”

That sticks with you. Even if you get drunk off your ass tonight and can’t remember any of this conversation, you want to remember that. It’s not even profound or anything, you just like the way that sounds. So blunt, but sort of sweet at it’s core.

“Tell me more about your brother,” you say, looking at the way his hair kind of falls in his right eye. The blue one, the right one. It’s just one loose curl, and you wonder what he’d say if you pushed it out of his face for him. That would be creepy, though. Almost as creepy as the sweatshirt still sticking out from under your pillow.

He shakes his head a little. “He likes to skateboard. I mean, he’s not really very good at it, but it helps him with his motor skills. It’s ridiculous, the way he just walks around talking about how great he is at skating. It’s just ridiculous,” he shakes his head and laughs again, and it’s really fucking endearing. “You know he has a girlfriend? An honest to God girlfriend? It’s amazing, I want to punch him for it sometimes. She’s hot as all hell. Smart too. I’m a little jealous, honestly.”

You squirm a little bit uncomfortably. Ugh. It was kind of nice just assuming his sexuality, because there was always a little bit of hope for you. Knowing is kind of a let down. No, not kind of. A real big let down that makes you pretty sad.

“Last time I saw Cronus he was tryna’ tell me about some chick he banged. I knew it was a lie, though. He was the biggest fuckin’ liar about that stuff.” You finish off the rest of your dinner, and the snow hasn’t let up at all. You take another long-awaited swig from your wine bottle. The cheap, bitter taste is a stark contrast to the home-cooked meal that you just ate.

“God, you’re a mess,” says Sollux looking past you, “you know if you ever need to just talk this shit out, I’d listen. And KK’s right down the hall, man. I mean it’s probably not too healthy to drink away your problems like th-” he narrows his eyes at you. “Is that my fucking sweatshirt, Eridan?”

“Probably,” you reply, against any better judgement. That was not a ‘probably’ question. That was a ‘please explain yourself you sad creepy asshole’ question. You’re pretty far gone at this point. Not just a little drunk anymore. You’re very drunk and sad and happy all at the same time. Even though your roommate’s straight you still want to kiss him more than ever and then vomit over the side of the bunk bed.

He sighs, and takes the wine bottle out of your hands. “It’s really time for you to get some rest.”

Okay, now that makes you really sad. You wish you hadn’t been drinking when he came back, because then he wouldn’t be treating you like a little kid. You also wish that he didn’t take his sweatshirt off of your bed when he took the tupperware and forks back down.

You lay your head against your pillow, sprawling out across your bunk and looking out the window. “‘S too fuckin’ cold here.” You want the snow to stop now, even though it looks so pretty out there falling in the dark.

Sollux turns off the lamp in your dorm, then crosses over to the desk and begins working on his laptop. Tip tap, tip tap on the keys. Here’s to another four months of the guy you’ve been pining over not to give a single shit about you. Tip tap, tip tap like the same as always. You hope, just for your own sake that you wake up and still remember this conversation. You hope that you remember the way he looked when he was talking about his brother. You squint in the dark to see that he’s still wearing that bee hat that he told you was dumb.

You’re almost asleep when you feel something soft hit you in the face.

“Keep it,” he tells you, completely monotone.

You smile, pulling the thing back over your head. “S’too cold, Sol. Too cold in here.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh yeah there's that...  
> if you liked that please tell me, and I might add more chapters!  
> if you didn't I'd totally appreciate constructive criticism for future fics so don't be shy with that!


	2. Chapter 2

The pounding in your head is all too familiar. Boom, boom, boom, just like a pulse.  
The room is already light when you open your eyes. It hurts. The light hitting your eyes from the window is physically painful. You cringe, and roll over in your bunk to face the rest of your dorm room.  
Sollux fell asleep at the desk, again. He looks a little more sad than usual, though. For one thing, he’s shivering. Actually shaking there with his head on the desk. For another thing, he’s still got on the bee hat. His curls are sticking out sporadically, and the hat is shifted so that only his left ear is covered. He’s got pretty big ears, too. He’s also sitting with his legs crossed in the chair; he’s sitting criss-cross-applesauce like circle time in the first grade.  
There are only three details that you remember vaguely from last night. Number one, Sollux let you keep his sweatshirt. That one’s pretty self-evident, though, seeing as you fell asleep in it. It’s soft and warm like nothing you’ve ever owned. Second, Sollux’s ‘little’ brother is actually the same age as Cronus. Lastly, you’re pretty sure that he’s straight. Technically, he never said it, but the image of a skinny Indian kid lisping that his brother’s girlfriend is ‘hot as hell’ is kind of hard to forget.  
You grasp for the blanket Fef knit for you. As soon as you make sure that this asshole doesn’t die from hypothermia, you’re going straight back to sleep. Well, maybe straight to your Keurig if you’re being realistic. You’re one of those people who can’t go to sleep once you’re up. You can’t even take naps unless you’re deathly ill or something. Even then, your convalescence may progress better from a nice helping of chicken soup and shitty daytime television. (As much as you’d hate to admit it, watching Maury is your guilty pleasure.)  
The first thing you do, however, is cross over to your dresser to retrieve a pair of socks and sweatpants, because Jesus your dorm got cold overnight. If you weren’t eighteen, you would be pretty sure that having a dorm room this cold is breaking some child abuse laws. You guess, at the least, it must be breaking state housing code.  
You slip on your pants that you got from playing on your high school soccer team last year. They’re a little thin and a little tight around the calves, but it’s better than just boxers. You contemplate taking a pair of your roommate’s for comfortable looking sweats, but you’ve got at least four or five inches on him; his sweatshirt’s one thing, but his pants wouldn’t even cover your ankles. Not to mention that would be like… even more creepy than the fact that you’re still wearing his sweatshirt.  
You cross your dorm to place the blanket gingerly around Sollux’s shoulders. He jerks away at first, reflexively, but after a moment he relaxes and stops shivering. He’s small otherwise, but he looks especially small when he’s asleep. His laptop is shut off, for once, but he’s still grasping his cell phone tightly in his left hand. Of course he’s an android guy.  
You notice that it’s going off. He’s turned the sound and vibration off, but it’s lighting up in his hand. Your first instinct, as a professional sack of shit, is to read his messages. Of course, you’ve sort of implemented a system to ensure that you make less questionable decisions.  
What would Cronus do?  
Well, your brother would most definitely pick up the phone, read through all of the messages, and then use the information in the texts to later blackmail his roommate.  
That’s how you know that you should probably leave his phone alone. In any situation, you’ve found that the correct decision is usually the exact opposite of what your brother would have done.  
Before harmlessly placing the phone of the desk, however, you do glance at who the texts are from. What? You’re only flesh and blood! Besides, that doesn’t give you much information. Sol is one of those people who puts contacts in his phone as nicknames. Disgusting. What is he, an animal? Contact names are in place to properly identify people, not to make immature jokes. The person texting him was simply identified by the moon emoji followed by the zodiac sign for libra. You have your best friend listed in your phone as “Feferi Peixes.” No silly emojis necessary to show how you feel for her.  
You keep a small red Keurig by the window. As a college student, it’s your prized posession. Sollux is a coffee drinker, and he buys coffee for it. You detest coffee and use your Keurig to produce tea and hot chocolate. You decide, looking at the snow still falling heavily onto your windowsill, that today is a hot chocolate day. It is also a marshmallow day.  
Drink in hand, you trek back to your bed, planning to spend your entire day watching Netflix. Contrary to popular belief, documentaries are much better to watch when sober. Well, at least they are to you. The Military Chanel holds a very special place in your heart.  
You plug your laptop into the wall, preparing for your binge, but the minute you open it up you get the “low power” message. That’s weird. You fiddle with the plug in the wall to no avail. You shut off your laptop, then try the same thing with your phone charger. Nothing. The Keurig was working fine just a minute ago.  
“Is it seriously still snowing?”  
You jump at the sound of another person’s voice on your so far peaceful morning. God, sound hurts, too. You’re reminded very forcefully of the pounding in your skull.  
“I think the power’s out,” you respond.  
You hear Sollux sigh from all the way across the room. “Christ, you’ve got to be kidding me. It’s cold as hell in here.”  
“Technically, hell’s pretty warm. Hell’d be a welcome change right about now.”  
Another sigh. “Listen, I’m not in the mood for any more bullshit this morning.”  
Ooh, ouch. He’s colder than your room.  
He stands up (still wrapping your blanket around his shoulders) and fiddles with his own phone charger for a moment. You hear him mutter a stream of colorful obscenities before resigning back to the desk chair. He types something furiously on his phone for a moment, then turns it off.  
“Yeah, I’ve got four percent on this thing.” He slams it onto the desk.  
You roll your eyes at the kid. His phone dies and he starts to have a damn hissy fit. “A dead phone ain’t the end of the world, Sol.”  
“As long as you’re no longer inebriated, my name’s Sollux, thanks. And yeah, it actually is. I promised Mituna I’d skype him tonight, and I can’t do that if my phone’s dead. He gets…” yet another sigh. “He just gets really nervous when I don’t call.”  
Now it’s your turn to sigh. You glance at your phone, a sole message from Fef is waiting for you. “)(ey --Erifin… my mom doesn’t want me driving up tomorrow. It’s hooking pretty bad out there. 38(“. You quickly reply “its okay fef you can visit another time” before shutting off your phone. It’s still at 82 percent.  
“You can use mine.”  
He looks at you, conflicted but grateful. “Dude... thanks. Are you sure? Like, really. Thanks. This really means a lot, you don’t even know.” He crosses the room, and you hesitantly hand him your phone.  
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t mention it,” you reply, even though you hope he mentions it again. You hope that Sollux never forgets how totally nice and selfless you are.  
The only problem is that now, without technology, you have no idea what to do. Going outside is unthinkable. Studying is even more unthinkable. You would read a book, but you oh-so-conveniently store almost all of your books on your kindle.  
Apparently Sollux is also at a loss, because he has slammed his head back onto the desk. Wow, he’s even more helpless without technology than you are.  
“Sollux?”  
He grunts in response.  
“Would you rather have sex with a goat, and everybody knew, or NOT have had sex with a goat, but everyone thought you did?”  
He perks his head up, and gives you the strangest look you’ve ever gotten. “Eridan, what the literal fuck?”  
You look down and twiddle your thumbs. “I mean, that isn’t the best one I’ve ever come up with, but ya’ can’t just sit there all day slammin’ your head on the desk not doin’ anythin’.”  
“I really can, thanks.” He slams his head back on the desk.  
You nod. “At least have the decency to answer the question, though.”  
He sighs, but after a moment responds quietly, “I’d fuck the goat.”  
You stare at him in disbelief. “You’d fuck a goat?”  
Now he perks his head up, going a little bit red in the face. “Well, of course I’d fuck the goat. Would you want to be known as ‘that guy who fucked a goat’ for the rest of your life?”  
“I mean,” you reply defensively, “I would if it meant that I could keep my self-respect. I’d at least know that I ain’t never fucked a goat. Unlike you, you filthy asshole.”  
Sollux gets up from the desk, wrapping the blanket still more tightly around his shoulders. “I’m not going to sit here and argue with you all day about goat sex.” He kneels down, and pulls an unmarked box out from the back of your shared closet. “Let’s do something that’s not completely mind-numbing, if we’ve got to do something.”  
You hop down from the bunk, keeping your comforter around your shoulders. “I don’t see what could me more productive than talkin’ about goat sex, Sol.”  
He doesn’t correct you this time. “Do you play chess?”  
Wow, he’s a fucking chess nerd. That fits him, you think. “I mean, I know how to play. You’ll probably whoop my ass, though.”  
Sollux shrugs. “You’re probably better than Vantas- KK’s one sorry chess player, I’ll tell you that much.”  
It was Cronus who taught you to play chess. He was a weird guy, he really was. He told you when you were 15 that playing chess is something everyone should know how to do, like changing a tire or playing “lean on me” on the guitar. (He actually taught you to do both of those things, too.) He showed you the way that each piece could move, and you beat him your third game. Cronus said you cheated, and you never got to play with him again.  
“Okay,” says Sol, setting up the pieces, “Do you wanna be red or blue?”  
“Ain’t they supposed to be black and white?”  
“It’s a special set.” You think that maybe he and his brother would play with this chess set. After all, you do vaguely recall him talking about playing chess with him last night.  
“Blue, I guess,” you respond, nodding. He’s sitting cross-legged on one side of the board, and you take the same position on the other side.  
“You know how all the pieces move?”  
“Yeah. Forget some a’ the names, though.”  
He laughs slightly. You think that he has a cute laugh. You mean that in the most innocent way, because his laugh sounds a bit like a little kid’s. “The names aren’t the important part.” Oh Lord, and that lisp. The cutest part is that he has no idea how cute it is. At this point it’s just downright fucking endearing.  
“Hello? Earth to Pissface?” He waves his hand in front of your eyes, making you realize that you were completely spacing out. “Do you want the first move, or not?”  
“Oh,” you reply smiling, “I’d love it, Sol.” You move your leftmost pawn forward two spaces.  
He makes his move. “I told you that I don’t like nicknames.”  
Goddamnit, he caught you. Oh well, you were kind of pushing your luck with that one. “Okay then,” you move your piece, “If ya’ don’t like nicknames, what do ya’ like?”  
“What is this shit now, eHarmony?  
You frown at him. “C’mon, we don’t know anything about each other.”  
“Okay, you’ve got a point.” He smirks, “I like long walks on the beach, romantic nights in, stargazing-”  
“You don’ have to be a dick about it, Sollux.” You capture one of his pawns. “What’s something you really like?”  
He retaliates by capturing one of your more valuable pieces. “Okay, I was making fun of you a little, but I really do like astronomy and space stuff. I’m actually planning on being an aerospace engineer.”  
“Dude, I thought you were majoring in computer science! See, it wasn’t a silly question. I learned somethin’ new about you.”  
“Okay then, what’s something you like?” He replies nauchauntly. Sollux has these ridiculously long eyelashes- just amazing eyes in general. His left eye is a strange shade of brown, almost red actually. In itself, a pretty but somewhat unremarkable color. His right eye, though, is a clear, light blue. Actually, the colors almost match the pieces in his chess set. You’ve never seen eyes like his, and you are certain that you never will again.  
“I like history. World War II era, especially.”  
“So you’re a history major?”  
You shake your head. “I’m still undeclared, but I think that’s where I’m heading.”  
“That’s... cool. I’m shit at history.”  
“Yeah, I bet.”  
Your first game of chess ends with him beating you, as predicted. Although, it wasn’t quite as embarrassing as you had pictured it. He called you a respectable opponent, who could probably beat Karkat Vantas. During the second game, he talks a little bit more, but you don’t pick up everything he says. It’s all probably very smart and funny, but you focus on the way his lips move instead. Up, down, up, down. How would they feel against yours? They’re tiny and chapped, but probably nice. They’d feel nice, you conclude. You lose the second round pretty quickly.  
Your third game, to both of your surprise, is a stalemate.  
He doesn’t even yell at you, like you expected.  
“You know, you’re pretty decent at this,” he tells you as he sets up the fourth game.  
You smirk at him. That’s probably a compliment, in his own strange, round about way. “Can you say that again? I don’t think I heard you right.”  
He groans. “I said, you’re decent at chess.”  
“One more time?” you ask, smiling wide.  
“I don’t have to play with you, you know,” he retorts.  
You laugh for the first time in what seems like ages. “You like playin’ with me and you know it.” You notice how his hands look. They’re small, bony, and he chews at his nails. There’s a few cuts and scars lining them, but one particularly large one running down the back of his right hand.  
“Just make your move, Eridan.”  
He wins the fourth game easily.  
By now, you know where all the pieces go, so you start to set up your pieces for the fifth game. “So tell me, Sol-”  
“Sollux.”  
“Yeah, whatever. Tell me, what made ya’ want to be an aerospace engineer of all things?”  
He scratches his chin. “Well, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. You know, everyone wants to go to space, at least on some level. But that dream kind of went out the window when I realized that I couldn’t step inside an airplane without barfing. So, I mean, space engineer is the next best thing.”  
“That’s kind ‘a cute, actually.”  
He gives you a funny look. “How’s that cute at all?”  
“Well,” you reply, making your first move, “everyone wants to be an astronaut when they’re little. But you never really stopped. That’s cute, Sollux.”  
“Whatever, man. I guess so .” They way he says ‘guess so’ is more like ‘getho’. It doesn’t even sound like a word, quite frankly. “So what made you get into history?”  
“It’s what I’m best at,” you explain simply, “my history teacher junior year helped me get lotsa’ scholarships and stuff.”  
“Mmhmm,” he responds lazily. He taps his chin when he’s thinking.  
Sometimes, you just look at someone and like them. You can’t even pinpoint why, and that’s how you feel about your roommate. Anti-social, rude, and not even attractive. Well, not as attractive as the guys you’d usually go for. There’s just little things he does that you like, though. You like the way he moves his fingers, and they way that his mouth hangs a little bit open. You like it when he falls asleep at the desk every night, and you like that he worries about his brother so much.  
You also like that when you win the fifth game Sol doesn’t even flip the board at you. He just shakes his head and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHERE DOING THIS MAN  
> WHERE MAKING THIS HAPPEN
> 
> so I don't know how many chapters this will end up being but yeah it will be basically a compilation of slow-moving fluff so I mean if you guys are up for that, cool. If you want it to move a little more quickly comment away- this is only my first fic and I'm still learning


	3. Chapter 3

If you press your ear up to the bathroom door you can pick out a few words in a language you decide must be German.   
After taking three years of it in high school, you should probably be able to understand at least some of it, but between Sollux’s lisp and the barrier of the door you can barely catch anything. You give up after only a minute of eavesdropping.  
When you sit back on your bed, you’re hit with the not-so-shocking realization that you’ve been living with a complete stranger the past four months. For all you know, Sollux Captor could be acquainted with Angela fucking Merkel herself.  
You don’t even know why he’s speaking German in the first place. After all, he’s Indian or Pakistani or something else you can’t pronounce ending in “-i”. One time you heard Kar call him “Eggroll” even though you’re pretty sure that’s the totally wrong part of Asia and pretty racist. You think that’s it’s like… the wrong kind of racist makes it seem a little worse to you, too. He could’ve at least called him “Bollywood” or something. Sollux laughed, so you guess it didn’t really matter too much after all. It probably bothered you more than it bothered him.  
It’s dark out now, and the snow has let up. It’s only coming down a little now, the way it’s supposed to come down in November. Maybe it’s a little bit cliche, but you think all that moonlight-on-the-snow bullshit is really pretty. If you weren’t sure that temperatures were below zero by now, you’d go outside right this second and make a snowman. You’d even give it one of your dumb scarves, too. You bet if Sollux was willing to part with one of his hats the two of you could make the dumbest looking snowman that anyone had ever seen.  
Snow would be a lot of fun if it weren’t so cold.  
You wrap your comforter tightly around your shoulders, just watching. The power hasn’t come back on yet, so you just sit on your bed and watch the snow like some scene in a shitty romcom. Kar would totally love this kind of bullshit.  
You wonder aimlessly if he and your other friends will end up coming home tomorrow. In a way, you don’t want them to. Maybe that’s a little bit selfish of you, but your last 24 hours have been pretty nice. Right now, it seems as if the entirety of your universe exists in your dorm room. You trace a pattern in the freckles covering your left hand. They had always looked like dirt to you, but maybe they could be the stars. Maybe the patterns you trace can be the constellations.  
The suite bathroom door opens a crack. “Thanks for letting me use this, man. Really. Thank you. Mituna said hi, by the way.”  
You scoff, still focusing on your hand, “he doesn’t even know me.”  
“Yeah, but I told him it was my roommate’s phone. He said to tell my roommate hello.” You think Sollux will move to his normal spot in the desk chair, but he surprisingly opts for his bed. He must be really cold to diverge from his normal routine like that. You don’t know a lot about Sollux, but you know that he’s a creature of habit.  
“That’s kind a’ nice, actually. Next time ya’ talk tell him I said hi, too.” You swing your legs over the railing of your bed. “Hey Sollux?”  
“Mhm?”  
“Where the fuck did you learn to speak German?”  
You hear an audible laugh from the bunk below you. “Dude, I’m German. My parents were born in Germany. We speak it around the house.”  
“I thought you were Indian, though?” you ask.  
Another laugh, and you think he’s making fun of you a little bit. “Jesus Christ, Eridan it’s the twenty-first century. Open your mind a little, will you? People move.”  
“Yeah, sorry, whatever. It’s understandable and all, though, seeing that you’re still a total fuckin’ stranger to me.” You pick at a hangnail on your thumb.  
“Christ, not this again. I feel like I’m back in high school.” He raises the pitch of his voice to mock a teacher, “Stand up Sollux, and tell the class how boring you are.”  
“No, c’mon it won’t be like that,” you protest.  
He groans, “I’m sure it will.”  
You take your comforter, and climb down the side of your bed to sit beside Sollux on his bunk. He scoots away a little bit, but doesn’t audibly protest. You count this as a minor victory. “What about we play twenty questions? I ask one and then you, n’ we go back n’ forth ‘till we’ve both asked twenty.”  
“Are you sure you’re not hitting on me?” he asks suspiciously.  
You’re glad it’s dark because otherwise he’d totally see you blush. “Of course not! Christ Sol, how are ya’ ever gonna make friends if you yell ‘no homo’ whenever a guy tries talkin’ to ya?”  
“Yeah, sure. You start then.” He waits for a minute before adding, “Ask your fucking question already.”  
You reply defensively, “I’m thinkin’ of a good one, Sollux, gimme a minute.” You tap your chin, finally settling on, “Where were you born?”  
He rolls his eyes, as if saying ‘yeah, that’s sure a good one, Eridan.’ He doesn’t say that, though. “Right outside of Chicago. Do you play any instruments?”  
“I play the piano. And Cronus taught me a little guitar. I’m not too great, though. I can only play chords.” You’re happy that he actually seems to be cooperating with your game here. “What kind of music do you like?”  
“Cronus sounds like such a douche,” he says.  
Now you roll your eyes. “Music.” You can say that about your brother, but it doesn’t quite sit right when Sollux says it.  
“I don’t know, Jeez, Eridan. I like techno shit. Dubstep. Sometimes I listen to rock or alternative stuff if the mood suits me. I guess just a little bit of everything that’s not country. I just hate that stuff. What do you like? I’m sure it’s some hipster-y bullshit.”  
“Is that one of your questions?” you ask, smirking.  
He sighs, “No, I wouldn’t want to waste my time on that one.”  
“You’ve probably never heard of any a’ the bands that I like. Just sayin’.”  
“You’re unbelievable,” he mutters. Maybe, if you were crazy enough, you’d pretend that was meant as a compliment. He continues with a real question. “Favorite book?”  
“Catcher in the Rye,” you respond without a thought.  
He laughs in response. “No one understands you, do they Eridan?”  
You frown. “Well, yeah. I feel like that sometimes.”  
He laughs even harder. “Okay, that’s too much. Just ask me a question.”  
You do want to know what the hell he sees wrong with the Catcher in the Rye, but maybe that’s an argument that does not need to be ignited right now. Especially when you’re trying to leave a good impression. As much as it kills you, you let it drop for something far more important. “Whatever, Sollux. Tell me about your first kiss.”  
“Alright,” he smiles, “I was fourteen. I met this girl my freshmen year who moved all the way up from New Mexico. And, well, she TZ and me-”  
“TZ?” you interrupt.  
“Yeah, best friend growing up. Her real name’s Terezi. Well anyways, this girl Aradia got to be best friends with Terezi and me. But there was one time that Terezi stayed late at school, and me and Aradia were waiting for my dad to come pick us up, right? Then I get to saying how I’d never been kissed before, so she just pulled me in right there and kissed me full on the lips. It was the sweet kind, too, that was soft and didn’t last too long. The best part is that then she got in my dad’s car two minutes later and started talking to him about the Goddamn weather of all things.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “She was wearing strawberry chapstick.” He twiddles with his thumbs for a moment before adding, “Okay, now you tell me about yours.”  
“Uh,” you rub the back of your neck pensively, “Well I’ve probably mentioned my best friend, Fef. When I first met her in high school she actually asked me on a date. So yeah, I think I was fourteen, too. And when we were halfway through the movie, to the best part actually, she started tryin’ to plant one on me, so I was like, ‘What the hell, Fef, some people are tryin’ to watch the movie’. She stopped then, but I mean, that was technically my first kiss.”  
He shakes his head, and stretches his arms above his head. “If we were talking about technicalities, I would’ve told you about the time TZ kissed me in the first grade to give me cooties. C’mon, tell me about the first real one.”  
You sigh. “If those are your high standards, I guess I ain’t never had a real one.” The both of you shift uncomfortably.  
“Wow,” he mutters, “guess that takes care of my next question, too.”  
You scoot away from him, asking, “Well, what would your next question have been?”  
“Virginity.”  
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” you respond under your breath, “guess you know the answer to that one.”  
He smiles, just slightly. “Yeah… I guess you can ask me another one now.”  
“I think we know enough about each other now.”  
He gives you a strange look. “Dude, this shit was your idea. And you’re quitting after what, three questions?”  
You shrug, then pull the comforter more tightly around yourself. “Yeah. It was real dumb anyways.” You feel pretty dumb right about now. You feel very small and want to dissolve into your blanket.  
“Alright, if you say so,” he says. You can practically hear the eyeroll. “We should do something, though. The power’s still out.”  
The snow’s almost stopped. It’s coming down softly now, the way it looks in all the movies. Last night it was like a blizzard. You remember when you were six, and Cronus was eight, the two of you made the best looking snowman of all time. Cronus had a top hat for it and everything, and then he made you hot chocolate. That was before you realized what a jackass he really was, so to you that day seemed like the best in the world. You wonder if your brother ever thinks of that kind of stuff. He probably doesn’t anymore.  
“We should build a snowman,” you say urgently.  
“You’re fucking crazy, Eridan. It’s freezing outside.”  
You throw off your comforter and head to your closet. Pulling out your heavy winter coat you reply, “No, c’mon. It won’t take too long. It’ll be fun, I promise.” You wrap your warmest knit scarf around your neck twice. Then, you throw a scarf to Sollux. “Just dress up warm.”  
“Damnit, if this is the best thing you can think of, I’m going to bed.” Sollux stretches his feet out on the bed, pushing your comforter off.  
You throw more articles of clothing at him, including gloves, his coat, and his bee hat. “It’s eight o’ clock, Sol. You ain’t goin’ to bed yet.”  
He retorts, “you don’t own me.”  
“Maybe not, but just trust me. It’ll be fuckin’ fun. If it’s too cold for you, we can just go back inside and we’ll play checkers or somethin’.”  
He sighs, but begins to put on his coat. “Whatever. I’m not wearing that scarf, though.”  
You slip on your work boots, replying, “Hey, you don’t have to. I’m just trying to make sure your dumb neck isn’t cold.”  
“I guess I’ll just take my chances.”

~~~~~

When you get outside the first thing you do is breathe in and pretend to smoke a cigarette. That’s what your brother used to do, anyways. You prop yourself up on your elbow by windowsills and say that the snow is pretty until you’re outside. Then you look down and pull your jacket tightly, and pretend that you are in a sad movie. You take another drag of the fake cigarette.  
“Mituna does that,” says Sollux.  
“What?” you ask, disrupted from your trance.  
He laughs at you. “The cigarette thing. He thinks he’s cool.”  
You want to stop thinking about brothers. “Where d’ya what to build him?”  
“Mituna?”  
“What?” you ask again, “Not your brother, the fuckin’ snowman.”  
“Oh, right,” he says, “I guess right here is good.” The two of you stop on a piece of land right in front of your dorm. Usually, you could see grass. On move in day there was a patch of clovers here, actually. You didn’t see any with four leaves, though, and that’s just as well. You used to believe in things like luck and magic, but you don’t anymore. That would be stupid if you did.  
You nod, and start rolling the base. The snow goes up to the middle of your calves. It’s not hard to walk in, though. It’s the nice kind of snow that’s just the right amount of water, and just the right amount of fluff.  
“Now Sollux, you start rollin’ the middle an-” You’re interrupted by something distinctly cold and wet hit the back of your head. When you turn around he throws another that hits you square in the chest.  
This boy sure does a lot of laughing at you. “Don’t tell me you’re not even going to hit me back!” He protests.  
“I ain’t stoopin’ to your level,” you reply, simply continuing with the base of your snowman.  
“That’s because you’re boring,” he says, beginning to roll the middle of your snowman.  
“No, I’m not. I just ain’t a barbarian like you.” If you wanted to, you could best Sollux pretty easily at any physical confrontation. Both of you know that. You also both know that you wouldn’t have the guts.  
He sighs, “keep telling yourself that. Boring, boring boring.”  
“Stop callin’ me that.”  
He smirks. “Booooooooring.” God, the way he draws out the ‘o’ sound just kills you.   
You ignore him.  
“Boring Eridan, hasn’t even kissed a girl before….”  
Okay, that’s enough of his bullshit. You take the sizeable base of your snowman and drop it promptly on his head. The water has soaked through your thin gloves, and you hope it does the same to his dumb hat.  
You expect him to blow up at you, but all you hear is that insufferable, nasally snicker. “Jesus Christ, Eridan, I thought you ‘weren’t a barbarian like me’!” He makes air quotes to mock you.  
“Well, you were bein’ a jackass. I call that a special exception.” You start on a fresh, new base for your project.  
He brushes the snow off of his hat and says, “Yeah, I guess I sort of deserved it. It’s just weird to me, though. I mean, you totally had a chance with that one chick-”  
“Feferi,” you correct.  
“Yeah, you had a chance with Feferi, but you didn’t even go for it.” Sollux finishes the middle of your snowman, and begins to work on a ball for his head. “I don’t get it.”  
You lean closer to him, half of you expecting something in return. “I dunno, just didn’t like her like that, you know?”  
“That’s sweet,” he mutters, “if she was hot I still would’ve kissed her. Fifteen year old me would’ve especially.”  
If there’s one thing you’re learning about your roommate the hard way, it’s that he’s painfully oblivious to hints. You remember the story of his first real kiss, how the girl just kissed him like that without a warning or a prompt or anything. She just kissed him, and you wish it would be more like that.  
The snow looks cute in his hair, on his eyelashes, dusting his face. You think that this should be the scene where you kiss, but you remind yourself that this is not a romcom. Life doesn’t work like that, not for you.  
You take another drag of your pretend cigarette, and then proceed to construct the dumbest looking snowman that the two of you have ever seen. Two twigs for arms, a purple knit scarf, and a blue and red striped winter hat.  
Sometimes, you think, the dumbest things can really be the best.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay yeah im a piece of shit who doesnt update often and im probably gonna go two weeks without updating unless theres a christmas miracle a brewin but hopefully this chapter makes up for it yo

Sollux is a very quiet sleeper. He doesn’t move much or snore or anything. Sometimes he shivers, but he doesn’t roll around very much. You know that he is awake because you can hear him rolling in the bunk below yours. You wonder what could be keeping him awake.  
Thinking of your brother usually keeps you awake. The last time you saw Cronus was the February of your junior year. That was a weird day. He was out of the house by then, but he dropped by because it was your birthday. Well, it was actually about a week after your birthday, but he came in apologizing for being late and everything. You forgave him, but you thought it was weird that he forgot seeing that your birthdays are only five days apart. He gave you a book he bought second hand, and then he took you out to eat at some shitty dive. He also tried to tell you that he managed to finally fuck that girl he’d liked since high school. You knew he was lying but you just kind of nodded along and let him live out his moment. You read the book that night, and when you tried to tell him how much you liked it the text bounced back. He got it for four dollars but it’s been your favorite book ever since. You doubt that he’s actually even read it. He’s the kind of guy that went around quoting Shakespeare all the time even though he’d never read the plays. (You don’t blame him for not reading them. You’ve never had much of a taste for Shakespeare yourself. You just think it’s shitty that he’s such a fake about it.)  
Thinking of your brother is what’s keeping you awake tonight because you realize how much you miss that asshole.  
The snow has stopped. You room isn’t warmer, but at least the power may start to come on. When you and Sollux came back inside, you actually saw a light in the hallway flicker. It was off quickly, though. You almost thought he was going to cry when he realized that his phone wasn’t charging.  
“Might as well just go to sleep, then,” he said.  
“It’s nine-thirty, Sollux,” you said.  
He threw off his coat then threw himself onto his bunk. You notice that a lot of little things seem to set him off sometimes. You settled into your bed five minutes later and attempted to reread the only paper copy of a book you brought with you to this godforsaken dorm room. The thing is, sometimes you get so worn out and mixed up that you can’t manage to understand one sentence of a book even though you’ve read it ten times before. So you just look out of your window and dream without falling asleep.   
You’re so tired but you doubt if you even know the meaning of the word sleep. It sounds foreign to you.  
“Sollux?” you ask a little too loudly.  
He sighs. “Mhm?”  
“Are you awake?”  
“No.”  
“Stop bein’ a jackass,” you reply.  
Another sigh. “What do you want?”  
What did you want, anyways? You think that you just do not want to feel so alone, but you can’t really tell Sollux things like that. He doesn’t get it because he likes being alone. Or else he does get it and just doesn’t want to talk about it. You’ve known some people who shut themselves off to be the loneliest. “I can’t sleep.”  
“Join the club,” he mutters.  
“What’s keepin’ you up?” you ask.  
He responds, “I don’t know, Eridan, everything. Anything, really. I’m a fucking insomniac. Who cares?”  
“Jesus Christ, sorry. I just thought I’d make conversation or somethin’.”  
“No it’s fine,” he says, “what’s keeping you up?”  
“The same, I think. Not the insomnia part, but the everything part. I’m just thinkin’ of my brother and stuff.”  
You hear him sit up on his bunk. “It sounds like you just need to track this guy down. You’re not gonna stop thinking about it until you do, man. This is like the seventeenth time you’ve mentioned him today.”  
“S’not just my brother, though. I’m just thinking about stuff.”  
“That’s cool.”  
“Ain’t you gonna ask what kind of stuff?”  
“No.”  
You hear another sound below your bunk, presumably Sollux laying back down. What an asswipe. You keep talking even though he’s probably not listening.  
“I’ve been thinkin’ about my parents a lot too, man. And my best friend, Fef. I miss her a lot. And I mean, even though my parents have been kinda shitty to Cron n’ me, I kinda miss them, too.”  
“Sucks, dude,” says Sollux, almost sounding apathetic.  
“I miss Fef the most, though. What about you, who do you miss?”  
He scoffs, “I was just home two days ago, idiot.”  
“Who did you miss most before that then? Jeez, you’re such a smartass.”  
“Aradia,” he says, catching you off guard. That’s the kiss girl, you think. The name makes your stomach do weird flips and turns that they shouldn’t be doing.  
“Not Mituna? Or TV or whatever you call her?” You take Fef’s fleece blanket and wrap it around your shoulders, then head down the ladder to sit next to your roommate on his bunk.  
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I miss them all. The thing about TZ is that since she’s blind she’s really big on touching and feeling and whatever. And licking, for Christ’s sake. And I love Mituna with all of my heart but he’s almost draining to be around, sometimes. I feel awful for saying it but it’s true. I can’t explain it about Aradia, though. It’s not like I love her more than anyone else, but there’s something about her that’s just so… missable.”  
“That makes no sense,” you say flatly. You sit next to him in his bunk.  
“Yeah it does. Just not to you, maybe.” He doesn’t acknowledge your presence. He also does not speak against it, so that’s nice. The only thing you’re thinking of doing right now is stretching your arms out and pretending to yawn so you can put an arm around him. Lame as hell, you know. But that’s what you think of.  
It really does not make any sense to you how someone can be more missable than another person even if you do not love them the most. You love Fef the most out of anyone, so you miss her the most. You miss people like your brother, but you think you would much rather have a surprise visit from Feferi. The thing about your brother, though, is that you just want to know that he’s not dead. That’s all.  
He continues, “See, there’s some people who will just show up at your house at three in the morning and ask you to go on an adventure. Then you say ‘Fuck it!’ and you go with them to wherever they wanted to go.” He raises his arms when he says ‘fuck it’ like a grand gesture. “That’s what Aradia’s like. And when she’s so far away we can’t really do that stuff anymore. That’s probably why I miss her more than anybody.”  
“Fef’s like that,” you explain, “One time she drove to my house at two in the morning and we went go-karting.” You laugh at the silly memory. “Fuckin’ go-karting, Sollux.”  
“She sounds amazing,” he muses, “I can’t understand why you didn’t date her.”  
Fuck, not again with this. “I could say the same for you and Aradia.”  
He laughs, “Don’t think I didn’t want to! I just didn’t want to mess anything up, is all. She’s the kind of friend that you remember for the rest of your life, and I didn’t want to ruin it with a crappy high school relationship. They all flop in the end.”  
“Well then that was the same for Fef n’ me. She’s just my best friend.”  
He raises an eyebrow, “Didn’t you say you two started out dating?”  
You shake your head quickly. “No, not really. It was one date. And it was forced as hell.”  
“Forced?” He asked, “I would pay someone to let me go on a date with a pretty girl.”  
You stare down, spinning your thumbs. “Well, I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. Ya’ know, the datin’ girls sort of thing.”  
“Oh my God,” he mutters.  
“Yeah.”  
You expect him to be really weirded out or something, but instead he laughs. It’s the loudest laugh you’ve heard from him today.  
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?” you ask defensively.  
“It’s just,” he says in between laughs, “I should’ve called it, man! All the scarves and the tight pants, God I should’ve called it!”  
“Wow, okay, ya’ fuckin’ homophobe, I get it,” you reply.  
He scoffs. “I can’t be homophobic, I’m bisexual, you douchebag.”  
Bi-thexthual. That’s probably the least attractive thing he’s ever said but it makes your heart jump. There’s a chance for you, after all. There’s a real chance.  
“You’re a dick, then,” you say quietly, “A real class-a asshole.”  
“I’ll give you that one,” he replies.  
You sit in silence for a moment.  
Sollux asks, “So you’ve really never kissed anybody?”  
“Nope.” You hate that he keeps bringing this up. You should've lied and said you’d kissed Feferi. It would’ve saved you a lot of embarrassment.  
“And you’re 18?”  
You can feel the blush coming on when you say, “Uh, yeah.”  
He sighs. “Don’t read too much into this, okay?”  
“Wh-” He doesn’t let you finish your sentence.   
Your first real kiss isn’t much like you expected it. You expected it to be really lovely. Like standing on a mountaintop in the middle of summer kind of bullshit lovely that never really happens. Your first kiss is lovely in a different way, though. It’s sort of like feeling electric sparks through your stomach and fingertips. It’s like forgetting where you are and what your name is. It’s also over too quickly for you to kiss back. You don’t even care that his laps are chapped and cold and taste like cinnamon toothpaste.  
“Christ,” you mutter, “Sollux I-”  
“Go the fuck to sleep,” he retorts, laying face down on the bed.  
You get up, and start to move to your own bed. “Yeah, I’ll try,” you say through a smile.   
“I’m serious,” you hear him call, “don’t read into this. That was like… a friend thing.”  
“Yeah, a friend thing,” you repeat.  
At least you’re not thinking of your brother anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

You wake up before your roommate does. He’s completely passed out in the bunk underneath you.

To your surprise, you phone had been charging through the night. The power is back on! Thank God, even with Sollux here, you were starting to go a little stir crazy. It was like those post-apocalyptic movies about getting cut off from the outside world or something. Or it was like being under siege by the enemy’s army.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad.

You check the messages on your phone. There’s a few built up from Feferi, a few facebook notifications, a missed call from your father, some texts from who you assume to be Sollux’s brother, and one lone message from your friend Karkat Vantas.

“HEY MAN. MY FLIGHT GOT DELAYED BUT ILL BE BACK LATE TONIGHT. ARE WE STILL ON FOR MOVIES?”

You smile at your phone. You had almost forgotten that Karkat had made plans for you two and Feferi to marathon chick flicks all day. It really was too bad that he would be getting home so late, and that Fef had cancelled.

“howw late”

The message was sent one hour earlier, at nine a.m., so you don’t expect any response right away. Karkat, however, proves you wrong. Karkat’s always been the type to respond right away.

“SEVEN”

“thats fine but you should knoww fefs not comin”

“WHATEVER. ITS FINE. SEE YOU TONIGHT”

“see ya”

You sigh, thinking about how you’ll manage to pass the next nine hours. You also wonder vaguely if last night was actually a dream or if it really did happen. Either way, you’re pretty thankful that Sollux is still asleep. You don’t think you could look at him right without turning beet red.

Did he actually kiss you? Could it have felt so real if it were a dream?

You think that it must have been real, because it was very awkward. You didn’t kiss back, it didn’t last very long, and his lips were all chapped. Every time you’ve dreamed of kissing someone, its been like a scene from one of those shitty romance novels. You know, the kind with the shirtless guy and the girl in some flowing, see through dress. The kind filled with pretentious writing entitled something like “The Forbidden Kiss”. The kind that cost two dollars to download onto your kindle at three in the morning… Yeah, like a scene from one of those.

Last night seemed to have no build up. One minute you’re sulking and assuming he’s straight, the next minute he’s coming on to you and telling you it’s a “friend thing”. What does that even mean? You can understand things like platonic hugs, or platonic hand holding even, but what the fuck does he mean by platonic kissing? In fact, what happened last night seems to be so characteristically Sollux that you could not have made it up, in any way.

You think if anyone could figure this out for you, it would be Karkat. He’s great with relationship kind of stuff, despite having very minimal success with the ladies himself. You think that he might be cute with that nerdy architecture major, Nepeta you think her name is, living on the floor below yours, but he’s completely opposed to it. What a shame, she really likes him. But, after all, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Concerning your metaphorical horse situation, however, you have no clue where the fucking metaphorical water is because you’re standing in the middle of a metaphorical goddamn desert.

You don’t think there’s anything your roommate’s ever done that hasn’t been confusing to you. 

It’s very unusual for him to sleep this late. Sollux Captor sleeping past seven a.m. is a very rare occurrence, and these last two mornings have been quite uncharacteristic of him. Even though he’s inconsistent in his behavior day to day, his routine usually remains consistent. He may not be quite emotionally stable, but he sure is habitual.

When you leave your bunk, he doesn’t even stir. That’s fortunate. You cross to your Keurig, thankfully up and running again, and start to brew yourself a cup of chai tea. You contemplate if this is what it feels like to have an unfortunate one night stand. You nod it off immediately. Even through your lense of endearing naiivity, you can see that that comparison is complete bullshit. You’re stressing over something that Sollux isn’t even likely to mention when he finally wakes up. That’s what Aradia did for him, anyways.

A part of you finds that very unfortunate, though. You hoped when you went to bed that you might wake up and he’d do it again.

You hold your steaming mug of tea (fuckin’ leaf water, as Cronus used to say), and look out of the window. It’s completely stopped snowing. None of it’s melted, and you can still see the snowman you build last night. You’re glad the dumb looking hat and scarf did not blow away, because it wouldn’t be nearly as good without them.

You take your laptop charger, and head back up to your bed to begin your long awaited military channel splurge. At least until Karkat gets here. You wonder absent mindedly if anyone has ever tried to mix a military documentary and romcom together to make some sort of… super-genre? The product, you fear, may be something for which the world will never be ready. You don’t quite know if you’re ready for that, either. While starting your computer again, you respond to Feferi’s text messages.

You are able to get 40 minutes into a documentary about the invasion of Normandy before you hear Sollux stir. Although you tried to convince yourself before that this encounter would not be a big deal, you find yourself tensing up. It would be really shitty if the two of you just went back to ignoring each other.

“Fuck,” is the first word you hear from the guy.

“Are you havin’ a problem?” you ask from your bunk.

“Fuck,” he repeats, “Eridan, what time is it?” He shuffles, most likely looking for his dumb glasses.

“11:00 on the dot. Congratulations Sol, you slept for 12 fuckin’ hours,” you reply smugly.

You hear him stifle a laugh from his bunk. “Christ, you actually think I went to bed when you did?”

You pause your documentary. “Well, when someone rolls face down onto a bed that’s what I assume they’re doin’, dickwad.”

“I mean,” he retorts, “I did sleep for maybe an hour. Then I woke up and saw that the power came back on.” He throws his comforter off onto the floor. “That was the end of sleeping.”

“Fuckin’ insomniac,” you mutter.

“I actually found something pretty interesting, browsing the web at four in the morning. You said your brother’s name is Cronus, right?”

When he says this, you nearly drop your phone out of your hand. “Yeah? I mean, I think I told ya that.” You don’t actually remember telling Sollux his full name. That’s weird as hell.

You hear him yawn. “Well, I think I found his tumblr. I mean, he only had his first name on there, but how many people are named Cronus in the world? I mean, you also described him as a horny douche, and that blog is basically essence of horny douchiness. Like, if they condensed that blog into a cheap perfume that’s what it’d be called.”

You’re too shocked for a moment to even respond. “Sol what the he-”

“I sent him an anon, and maybe you could see if he responded. Or you could see if that seems like him. Maybe see if he put any douchey selfies up or something to confirm.” Sollux sits up on his bed, and you can see his feet when you look down.

All you manage to say, pulling up a new tab on your laptop, is, “W-w-what’s his URL?” God, that stutter. You cringe a little bit at it.

“Contemporary double dash amour.” contemporary--amour.tumblr.com. Oh God. That is undoubtedly the douchiest URL that you have ever heard. You type it into the search bar, only slightly laughing.

“Cronus,” you read out loud, “20. Male. Bisexual. Loves music, down for anythin;’. Oh, Lord, he did a winky face. Sol-” you say through a laugh, “Sol, this has to be him.” It was strange, however, that he never told you he was bisexual. He only seemed to talk about girls with you. Maybe, you conclude, he’s so desperate he’d go after anyone that might let him fuck them. Your brother’s sexual escapades (or lack thereof) never cease to amaze you.

You hear the smug sense of accomplishment in his voice when he asks, “did he answer my message?”

You proceed to read the first post on his blog out loud. “For that shifty anon in my inbox: that’s none a your fuckin’ business, Chief.” 

“Oh my God,” you hear Sollux say, “he’s really something, isn’t he?”

You attempt to navigate to his tagged me, to find that there is an abundance of very unfortunate selfies that he has posted. You almost piss your pants. “Sollux, this really is my brother. Thanks for… yeah thanks.” You begin to draft a message to him.

“Nah, I just found his stupid tumblr. It’s nothing, man.”

You had nearly completely forgotten that he had kissed you last night. You wish that he’d let you do it again. You click send on your message, hoping he takes more kindly to it than whatever Sollux sent him. You imagine it must not have been too nice if he responded like that. Cronus sure was touchy, though.

Sollux leaves his bed, crosses to your closet, and throws on a hoodie over his baggy Star Wars t-shirt. You remember that the yellow hoodie you are currently wearing used to belong to him. Maybe you should change it before it starts to smell weird.

“Hey,” you call as he pulls up his hood.

He turns to look at you.

“Fuck it,” you mutter, under your breath. You continue, a bit louder, “I was thinkin’ since it ain’t snowin’ anymore instead of stayin’ inside again all day like a pair a assholes maybe we could go out for coffee?”

He looks a bit disheartened at the suggestion. “Eridan, I told you last night was just… no Eridan, sorry about that.”

You’re a little bit taken aback, but you respond, “No, no I know, Sol. But I meant it in the platonic way, or whatever. Ain’t nothin’ inherently romantic about a steamin’ cup of bean water.”

He sighs, looking out the window. “Fine, but really, don’t call me ‘Sol’ anymore. No nicknames. Just this once, though. Let’s not make this a regular thing.”

You smile, climbing down once more from your bunk. “I think if we’re roommates we should at least try bein’ friends.”

He sighs, heading towards the suite bathroom. “I was never too great at the whole friends thing.”

You laugh, replying, “Neither was I.”

He nods at you before leaving to shower. You may have been expecting a little too much from him because of last night, but maybe this wouldn’t be too disgustingly hopeless after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow ye i have returned  
> and i think im going to end this in three or four more chapters so i mean yeah thanks for sticking around guys  
> but just a thought:  
> what would you guys think of a high school au where sollux and eridan kind of become internet friends (maybe eridan writes fanfic or something lol) but they totally hate each other in real life and they ?  
> I know its been done a lot before but hey i bet i could do a new twist on it, especially when i figure out how to do fonts and colors on this dang website


	6. Chapter 6

You made an effort to dress down today, thanks to Sollux’s off-handed comment about your fashion sense last night. You don’t think he meant anything by it, but it still made you a little self-conscious. When getting dressed, you opted for a more traditional dark wash pair of jeans rather than your signature pinstripe jeans.

You didn’t give up the scarf, though. It’s really, really cold. 

You notice that when many people walk they like to look at their feet. Maybe they don’t want to step on anything with their nice shoes, or they don’t want to look people in the eyes, or else they might just really like looking at the weeds that come from the cracks in the sidewalk. When you used to believe in useless things like magic you found a four leaf clover this way. You used to look at your feet when you walked, but now you like to look straight ahead. You would have pegged Sollux as the type to look at his shoes.

He is not.

He doesn’t look straight ahead, either. He looks up. Maybe he is looking for patterns in the clouds. Didn’t he tell you yesterday that he always wanted to go to space? Maybe he is walking along in silence, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, just thinking about what it’s like in outer space.

You decide that is the thing he is thinking about. Whatever he is thinking of, staring off into the sky, it is most likely not you. But you, staring at the faces that pass you straight ahead, are most definitely thinking of him.

“Sollux?” you ask, paying special attention to the second half of his name. You would really resent if he snapped at you in public.

“Hmm?” he responds, taking a break from his dumb space thoughts to look at you. Or else, at your nose. He doesn’t make a habit of looking people directly in the eyes. 

That’s a shame, he has such interesting eyes.

You reply, “Did ya’ want to actually go in the building or…?” You gesture to the front door of the student union. He seemed a little too dazed to even notice that the two of you had arrived.

“Oh yeah,” he shakes his head, “we should use the side door. It leads right into the starbucks.”

You nod in agreement as a small girl passes the two of you to step into the door. It was strange, over the past two days you had nearly forgotten that other people existed.

The two of you make your way into the side door, and into the somewhat packed starbucks. It looks like other people had the same idea as you, about buying something warm to drink now that it’s not blizzarding.

You don’t like the taste of coffee, but God, you love the smell.

Sollux gets in line, and starts to fish his beat-up leather wallet out of his back pocket.

“Don’t,” you interrupt, pushing in front of him, “I’ve got it.”

Nobody’s looking, but you can tell that he doesn’t want to draw any sort of attention to the two of you. “I told you this wasn’t a date,” he tells you, a bit nervously.

“It is not,” you retort, “I’m just payin’ for your dumb coffee. It’s the polite thing to do.” Ha, yeah right. Since when were you ever polite just for the sake of it? You’re not proud, but you almost always have ulterior motives for selfless acts. Maybe it makes you a little less of a horrible person for admitting it, though. That’s how you like to spin it, anyways.

He sighs, speaking barely above a whisper, “I really think it would be more appropriate if I bought my own frilly girly drink, thanks.”

You shake your head rapidly, moving up in the line. “Just think of it as me payin’ you back for Thanksgiving.”

“God, ED, that was free. It was out of the goodness of my pure and untainted heart. I’m like mother Theresa with all this goddamn generosity. Please, for God’s sake, let me buy my own coffee.”

ED? Where did that one come from? Are you finally worthy of one of his Blesséd two letter nicknames? If that asshole hadn’t shut your nickname down just two measly hours before this you would pissing your pants right about now. Maybe it was a mistake on his part, and it would be decent of you to let it slide. Of course, you haven’t known any wars to be won through common courtesy.

You laugh at him under your breath. “Well, then think of this as my pure act of kindness or whatever you were talkin’ about.” You smirk at him and add, “Sol.”

He looks at you for a moment, defeated. “I like hazelnut macchiatos, and I’m going to wait outside.” You think that he may have given up simply because the guy in front of you had snickered at him.

“Hazelnut macchiato?” you muse, “That ain’t very festive of you.”

He scoffs before taking off. “Whatever, dickhole. Just buy me some expensive shitty coffee.”

Well, that’s the plan, anyways.

When you go to order your coffee, the barista chuckles at you. She’s very pretty, you think, and most likely not a person who looks at her shoes when she walks. She ties her nearly white-blonde hair up with a purple bandana. You think that you like the barista, or you at least dislike her a little less than other baristas.

“Trouble in paradise?” she asks through a thick layer of black lipstick. Funny, you haven’t seen too many pull of black lipstick too well. It looks almost natural on the barista, though.

You’d usually tell her off, you know, for prying into your business and shit. You’re in a surprisingly good mood, though. “He’ll come around,” you respond shaking your head.

“That’s fortunate. The two of you look sweet together,” she readies her sharpie and asks for your order.

You do not correct her about your relationship status. Why should you go to the trouble of correcting a gothy barista? And you’d be lying like hell if you said you didn’t want to be mistaken for Sol’s boyfriend. You’d just be straight-up lying. “I’ll have a tall hazelnut macchiato and a hot chocolate.”

“Name?”

“Eridan.”

She furrows her brow. “Could you spell that for me?

You smirk at her. “Y’know what? You can just write ‘ED’ on them. I won’t forget who it is.”

***

“Took you long enough,” Sollux says, taking the drink that you hand him.

You take a sip of your hot chocolate. It’s not quite sweet enough for your tastes, but you didn’t come out today for a quality drink. Besides, it’s not unbearable. “You’re welcome,” you mutter sarcastically.

He takes a sip, then glances at the cup. “Oh God,” he says, “you didn’t.”

You smirk, not looking at him. “My name’s pretty hard to spell, Sol.”

“You’re a douche.”

“Where do you want to go?” you ask. If you acknowledge his name calling, it would be like letting him win. So far today, the score weighs pretty heavily in your favor, if anyone had been bothering to keep score. Just by looking at him, you conclude that your short, skinny roommate is most likely not very big on sports metaphors. He was probably the kid that got hit in the face with dodgeballs in gym class.

He shrugs. “No where special, I was thinking we could just walk around since it’s not that cold anymore.”

“We could walk by the lake,” you suggest, half joking. You remember he told you sarcastically that he enjoyed long walks on the beach. That’s another snarky horse shit point for Eridan Ampora.

“You’re hilarious,” he responds, picking up on your idiocracy. He stretches his arms, and looks past you and the student union. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, really?” you ask through a snicker.

As he’s taking off in the direction of the lake he asks, “Well, why not? It’s pretty down there.”

You don’t care what Sollux says otherwise, at this point you two are definitely on a fucking date.

He’s mostly quiet when the two of you walk, only stopping for the occasional answer to your nervous small talk. He’s still looking up at the sky, though. Why is he looking up instead of at you when you talk? You try looking up for a moment, and you can see a few cloud shapes that you like. The one near the left looks a little bit like a cloud, if you look hard enough.

“What are you even lookin’ at?”

“Hmm?” he responds, tearing his eyes away from the sky to look at you.

You repeat, “What’s so interestin’ up there?”

For the second time today, he shrugs at you. He pulls his jacket a bit tighter. Of course it didn’t close, because the first two buttons have fallen off. You think Sollux would probably call his coat a trenchcoat, but that’s not the proper name. It’s too short to be a trenchcoat; perhaps a paletot would be a more appropriate name. You wouldn’t correct him about it, though.

He says, “Dunno. The sky just looks nice.”

Yeah, well you look nice, too. What an asshole. “What’d you send my brother anyways to make him so mad?”

The left corner of your roommate’s lip quirks up. “I just asked him if his last name was Ampora. I mean,” he continues, “I may or may not have insulted his shitty blog a little, but I wasn’t that mean. I honestly thought he’d be a better sport about it.”

You snort. “Damn, did you misjudge him.” You stuff your hands into your pockets, “He’s not really the joking type.”

He takes a sip of his frilly hazelnut bean water and looks down the path to the lake. He point with his free hand and asks, “Down here?”

You nod, and the both of your start to make your way down the path through the pine trees. You’ve always liked pine trees, because they don’t lose their needles during the winter. They also smell pretty nice, you think.

“So tell me something interestin’ about you,” you state, casually taking another sip of the painfully bitter hot chocolate.

He looks at you, a little confused. “Interesting? About me?”

You nod at him. “Yeah, there’s bound to be somethin’. Or tell me a funny story. I don’t know, just say something.”

He runs his fingers through his messy black hair nervously. “Well,” he stops to think, “A funny story?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He smiles. “Well, last summer me TZ and AA mash potatoed this girl’s lawn.”

You are very confused at what ‘mash potatoing’ entails. “What’s that mean?” you ask.

“Well,” he starts, “if it’s going to rain or something soon, you take a whole bunch of instant mashed potato boxes, right? And then you pour them on somebody’s lawn, and boom! They’re entire lawn is mashed potatoes. Me and AA egged her, too. I mean, Terezi wanted to, but the whole blind thing. She probably would’ve ended up hitting me with an egg, knowing her.”

“God,” you say, “what did she do to deserve that?” You shudder, remembering the time Fef came over to help you and Cronus get the copious amounts of toilet paper off of your house before it started to rain.

The lake’s very pretty this time of year, frozen at the edges. If you didn’t have a fear of falling in, you would suggest ice skating. Again, not that Sollux probably wants anything to do with sports.

A wide smile spreads across his face, as he remembers his glorious moment. “Oh, no, she deserved it, for sure. She was always a dick to people. I mean, I wasn’t friends with this one kid, Tavros, but AA was. She’d always fuck with him for being in a wheelchair, I mean, it was pretty bad. Trust me, she deserved it.”

You nod, at least partially understanding. You never thought you were enough of a dick to ‘deserve’ a toilet paper house, but maybe that’s not for you to judge.

He retells the story in vivid detail. You guess it was interesting, how they bought 40 dollars worth of mashed potatoes when they were on sale, and how Sollux drove them to her house at 2 in the morning. Then TZ said something weird about the scales of justice and AA said something witty and interesting, and then they almost got caught by the girl’s weird sister. It was funny, you actually laughed a few times. More interesting than his story, though, are the way his lips move and his eyes light up. Especially when he got to throw the first egg at her glass door, that’s when his eyes really lit up. You wonder if heterochromia runs in his family, or if he’s the only special one. You wonder how badly he’d tell you off if you kissed him again.

“The best part,” he concludes, “is that we never even got caught. She was fucking pissed when she got to school on Monday, too, like I could almost see the cartoon steam coming out of her ears. It was exhilarating, ED.” There it is again; ED. You quirk up your lip at that. “Now you tell me something interesting.”

Interesting? You rack your brain for something you and Fef did that was even half as exciting, but you’re falling short. In fact, most of your escapades seem pretty lame in comparison. You think that egging houses with Sol and his creepy friends might actually be pretty fun. “I’m not that interesting,” you decide.

He responds, “well, nothing’s as good as that story, but I mean, don’t feel too much pressure to live up to that. I’m basically a living legend.”

You smile, shaking your head. “You’re such an asshole.” Yeah, a cute asshole. You tap your chin with your right hand and say, “There was one time where me and Fef got banned from our local Wal-Mart.”

He throws his head back laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, really,” you say reminiscing. You go on to tell the somewhat embellished story of how the two of you used duck tape, sewing supplies, and loosely secured children’s bikes to trap the manager within the confines of the electronics aisle. It’s kind of a dumb story, but Sollux pays full attention to you, laughing at the appropriate times and all.

The two of you walk around by the lake, finishing your coffee and talking. You think it’s funny when he talks about his brother, who is apparently a master of crude sexual innuendos but actually has no idea where babies come from. You tell him about all of Cronus’s failed and hilarious romantic ploys.

“Y’know,” you say to him, as the two of you near the entrance to your dorm, “Me and Kar were plannin’ on watchin’ movies tonight, if you wanted to join.”

His nose and cheeks are red from the cold. “Oh God, movie with KK? You mean all those shitty romcoms he always tries to get people to sit through?”

You still find it strange how both of you are so close with Kar, but had never thought to talk to one another until this weekend. “Well, I mean, if you want to think of it like that-”

He shakes his head. “I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer,” As he passes through the door he looks at you and tacks on, “ED.”

Even though you’re a little embarrassed about his quick rejection of romcom night, You think this is probably the best not-date (actually a date) that you’ve ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so you all know i appreciate all of the nice comments and kudos i didnt even think anybody would read this when i first started!


	7. Chapter 7

You reload your inbox, expecting a message from your brother, for the third time tonight. He has to have gotten it by now, right? Doesn’t he want to get in touch? You refresh it a fourth time.

“C’mon man,” Karkat calls from the other side of the room, trying to hook up the DVD player, “he’ll reply. Just stop thinking about it for a little bit.”

“Yeah, I guess,” you respond, leaning your head over the side of the mini-couch. You place your phone face-down beside you. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

“There,” says Karkat, “I think it’s gonna work. Move over.” He comes to sit next to you on the sofa, forcing you to move your feet to the floor. How rude. 

You remark, “Dude, I still can’t believe how lucky you got with your roommate. Fuckin’ rich guy who lets you use all his cool stuff. Unbelievable.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Oh God, don’t tell me you’re hopping on the Dave Strider bullshit express just like everyone else. He’s a total asswipe.”

“I think you’re just tryin’ too hard to hate this guy for no real reason.”

Karkat scoffs as he fast forwards through the previews. You don’t even know why they bother to put previews on DVDs. It’s like, if you’re watching them years, or even just months, after you buy the DVD they’re out of date. You don’t even recognize half of these movies. “Well,” Karkat replies, “If you like Dave so much we can just switch roommates. Sollux sucks too but at least he knows that he sucks.”

You’re not quite sure how to respond to that, actually. You had forgotten that you had not updated even Fef, let alone Karkat, about the strange turn your relationship with Sollux has taken. You decide to sort of… ease into it.

“No, Sollux ain’t even that bad. We actually went out for coffee today.” You casually scratch the back of your neck.

Karkat raises one eyebrow at you as he presses play. Finally, the opening credits of Mean Girls begin to play. “That’s weird. I thought you hated that ‘fuckin’ entitled hermit’.” He does the air quotes, making you cringe at your previous description of Sollux. You were quite bitter, and still are, at his reluctance to even acknowledge your existence.

“Yeah, well, he’s not really as bad as I thought.”

Just as Karkat opens his mouth for a response, you hear a knock at the door. “I’m not done with you,” he says, as he gets up to open the door. God, he’s almost as short as Sol. Why do you have such a tendency to make friends with so many short people? Come to think of it, Fef only comes up to your shoulder.

“Hey, Karkat!” You recognize the skinny girl at your door to be Nepeta, the architecture major. She’s holding a pretty heavy book in her left arm. “Is Dave here? I meant to drop this off fur hi- Oh, hi Eridan!”

You give her an unenthusiastic wave. Nepeta is nice, and yeah you wish she and Kar would get together, but we’re all here tonight to talk about you and your problems. Not her and Dave’s fucking medieval weaponry book or whatever weird thing she’s reading now.

She enters the dorm room, and places the book on Dave’s desk. Nepeta is very pretty, in that sweet ‘doesn’t really try’ sort of way. She’s wearing sweatpants, an oversized men’s shirt, and her short hair’s all stuffed into this weird cat hat. You don’t really know how to describe it, but she’s just nice to look at. The book in question, was in fact about a variety of medieval weapons and military strategies. You might want to borrow that book from Dave for yourself.

As she’s about to leave, she asks, “Oh my God, are you guys watching Mean Girls?”

You look to Karkat helplessly as invites her to stick around for a while. And, well, if you objected at this point you would look like a real jackass. Besides, you do have extra popcorn since Feferi ditched. Karkat is very against the idea of sharing any leftover food with Dave Strider.

“So tell me more about your sudden shift in opinion on lisp douche.” Karkat takes his place back on to the couch, next to you.

Nepeta sets herself on the floor in front of the two of you with a rather large bowl of popcorn. “Lisp douche? Do you mean Sollux?”

You laugh a little bit. “Yeah, how did you ever know?”

Karkat nudges you with his shoulder. “Stop changing the subject, dude. How in God’s name did you go from shit-talking him every time we got together to being halfway up his ass?”

“I am no w-where near to bein’ up anyone’s ass!” you say, flustered, “In, like, the literal or metaphorical sense.”

Nepeta giggles, “Oh, so he’s the one up your ass?”

In a grand gesture, you get up to leave the room. “I cannot believe this is happenin’ right now. If God is real, and he is merciful, he will smite me as soon as fuckin’ possible.”

Karkat coaxes you back, saying, “No, c’mon dude, Nepeta’s just joking. At least come back and set us straight.”

Again, Nepeta chimes in, “Straight- that sure is a funny choice of wording!”

“I’m only stayin’ if she promises to pipe the fuck down.”

Both you and Karkat look at Nepeta, and she makes the lip-zipping motion with her right hand. She at least knows when she’s gone a little too far. You suppose that you can stay a little longer, so long as you are not subjected to such constant ridicule. 

As you retake your position on the couch, you declare, “Just for the record, me n’ Sol are just friends. Nothin’ else.”

Karkat smirks. “Yeah, of course.” With his mop of messy red hair and obnoxious freckles, you decide that there is something very punchable about Karkat Vantas. He continues, “Do you want something to drink?”

Of course you can’t drink, you have classes tomorrow! What a silly notion! You also have recently gotten over a hangover, and you would prefer not to have another. “Yeah, you can get me a beer.”

What? You’re only human! Besides, Kar and Nep get one too. It’s not just you.

You take a very conscious effort to leave certain details out of your story. In your somewhat abridged version, he comes back Saturday morning rather than Friday night. He also does not give you his sweatshirt. You never play 20 questions, and you never pay for his coffee. He certainly never kisses you. That would be a whole new layer of awkwardness to include in this story.

The more you think about it, though, the more it seems like many of his actions haven’t been purely platonic towards you at all. That’s a strange thought.

After you’re finished retelling the enthralling tale, Nepeta makes her first comment. “Oh, I know you’re leaving stuff out. That’s pawfully rude of you, Ampurra!”

You try your best to look sarcastic when you roll your eyes, but you just end up looking like you’re lying. “I’m sure you don’t wanna hear every mundane-ass detail from my boring weekend.”

“That’s pretty defensive fur someone who had a ‘mundane-ass’ weekend,” she retorts.

“Kar, remind me why you invited her to stay?” You shove a handful of popcorn into your mouth and take another swig of beer. You don’t actually think you like beer that much, and wonder as to why you’re drinking it at all. Oh well. You’re only young once, right? You finish off your first and ask Karkat if he has anything stronger.

“Stronger? Dude, we have classes and shit tomorrow. I’m not going to babysit you in history tomorrow, either. People will just point at you and your dumb hangover shades and laugh at the douchey baby that couldn’t have any fucking self control. And you know what? I’d laugh with them. I would be the instigator of the laughing and pointing, in fact. So, no,” replies Karkat, in a typically long-winded fashion.

You groan. It’s just like him to rain on your booze parades. Or well, not so much rain, but dry them out. He’s more like a boring crusty heatwave than an exciting alcohol rainshower. “Fine, can I have another fuckin’ beer at least?”

Karkat grudgingly agrees, and crosses to the refrigerator. He may be a killjoy, but he is an excellent host.

“You know,” starts Nepeta, fishing something out of her baggy pockets, “I’ve been shipping the two of you fur a while.”

“Oh God,” you reply, pretending to gag, “please don’t say that about real fuckin’ people. That’s just… gross, Nep.”

Karkat calls from across the room, “Do you want anything Nepeta?”

“Yeah, a water and maybe some chips if you have any?” She pulls a mini notebook from her pocket and assures you, “No, see, I’m a master matchmakefur.” She opens to page one, featuring a crude drawing of two young women in a heart. “See, you know my roommate, Rose?”

You shake your head, vaguely recognizing the name.

“She’s the sort of gothy chick that works at the starbucks at the student union? I’m fur sure that you’ve seen her.”

You actually do remember seeing someone that may have fit the description when you went out with Sollux today. You remember that you liked this mysterious “Rose”.

“I predicted her and this other lit major would get togethfur from day one. They made it official, and have been going strong ever since!” She smiles, triumphantly turning the page. “And these two just made it official a week ago- they’re so purrfect togethfur.”

“Dave and Jade are togethfur- wait, fuck, together now? And you-”

She giggles, “Shh, I’m like a fortune teller! And I’m certain that you and Sollux are next.”

You look at Karkat, who’s still busy trying to find chips, before responding quietly to Nepeta. “Okay, I really appreciate your sentiment or whatever, but it’s really not happenin’. Like not a fuckin’ chance.”

“You’re just seeing what you want to, Eridan! Don’t be so dumb, sometimes.” She swats you on the hand, then turns around, apparently content. Maybe it’s the puns getting to you, but she does remind you an awful lot of a cat. You expect for her to start purring at any moment.

You kick back your feet and lean your head on the wall behind you. “Whatever, Nep.”

“It’s true,” she asserts, “you should just hear the way he talks about you.”

You scoff, “About me? He barely even talks to me.”

Karkat comes back, plopping next to you and tossing another opened beer on your lap. “What, did I miss some kind of secret bullshit conference?”

Nepeta giggles, “Nope! Just some very impurrtent shipping infurmation!”

Karkat raises and eyebrow, “So… bullshit?”

You nod, “Complete fuckin’ bullshit.”

“You guys say that now, but I really do have a knack fur this sort of thing,” she defends.

You sit without talking for a bit, watching the dumb movie, laughing at the appropriate times. Nepeta laughs at almost everything. Karkat laughs at things that are actually funny. You don’t laugh very much at all. In part, because you’ve seen Mean Girls a million or so times, and in part because you’re not really focusing on the movie.

What in God’s name could Sollux have ever said about you? Especially anything that would lead Nepeta to think that he harbors something other than completely platonic feelings towards you, when he explicitly told you he did not. You cannot fathom any sort of explanation. Well, any satisfactory explanation, anyways. You can merely conclude that Sollux Captor is a giant mess. A giant mess that you would not mind getting to know a little better, albeit.

“You know,” Karkat pipes up, “as crazy as this sounds, he actually does like you.”

You give him your best death-glare before replying, “Okay, ha ha ha this is all so funny and everything, but let’s not turn this into make fun of Eridan night or somethin’ awful.”

“No, dude, I’m not, I’d swear on Dave’s mini-fridge. He’s just… he’s just weird and cagey as hell about it.” Karkat shakes his head, “Don’t tell him I told you, but he’s been trying to work up the courage to talk to you for about a month now. He’s just an idiot.”

God, Nepeta squeals at that. “I told you, Ampurra!”

You hit her head with a kernel of popcorn, and get up. As you pick up your phone, you state, “I’m leavin’ this shit fest. Call me when the two of you stop bein’ literal five year olds.” Of course they’re teasing you. They have to be… teasing you.

This time, Karkat makes no effort to stop you. Instead, he simply calls, “Can I be best man at the wedding?”

You don’t really know why you’re friends with those two dummies. Yet again, someone you know once said that the dumbest things can really be the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws my favorite character at you*


	8. Chapter 8

After leaving Karkat’s dorm room, you decide that you don’t want to go back to your own. You don’t really know what you want to do or where you want to go. You’re only equipped with your phone and wallet, but that’s probably enough. You decide to head down to your dorm’s lounge and stare at the TV screen for a while with some strangers. That sounds like fun. You could also probably access the reading for your history class on your phone’s internet browser.

As you make your way downstairs, you are sure to keep your head low and hands tucked into your pockets. If no one knows that you’re brooding, are you really actually brooding? Probably, but you like to make your emotions known, regardless.

There is only one young woman in the lounge at this time. She’s sitting, curled up in an armchair near the flatscreen television reading Anna Karenina. The remote is on her armrest; she has a football game playing turned to mute. You can’t really blame her for that. You love to watch sports but sometimes the announcers kind of get to you. Yeah, like you couldn’t tell that that guy just made a touchdown. No one needs to fucking yell about it or anything. You recognize the young woman vaguely, but not enough to say hello. That would make it awkward.

Instead, you take a seat on the couch facing the TV, and stretch out your feet. Your phone is at 35 percent, but you know the minute you go on to the internet it will lose battery very quickly. You elect to turn down the brightness and close all of your other running apps.

The woman glances up gingerly from her book to the screen. She nods, as if the score was somehow favorable to her, then she glances over to you. She has this sort of boho meets flapper kind of look that works surprisingly well. You would commend her for being almost completely covered in fabric, yet still maintaining a sort of sex appeal.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She asks. Her voice has a certain smooth, or calming quality to it. It sounds a bit like a cup of hot tea should sound.

You rack your brain for any image of this girl. Surely, you would have remembered someone as distinct as her, with her maxi-dresses and lace headbands. You hate to admit it, but you do recognize her. You just can’t place from where. “I don’t know,” you answer honestly.

She slips a piece of paper into her book, and places it on the arm of her chair, next to the remote. “I’m absolutely positive that we have met before,” she insists.

You don’t put your phone down. “Well, I’m Eridan Ampora. Ring a bell?”

She bites her lip, covered in green lipstick of all colors. Eventually, she says, “I’ve heard the name, but I can’t quite place it… You don’t happen to take an introductory psychology course, do you?

“That must be it,” you lie. You wouldn’t take psychology if your life depended on it. You just want some peace to do your homework. It seems as if the world is conspiring against you tonight.

She shakes her head again. “Oh, no, you’re Sollux Captor’s roommate!” She goes back to her book, remarking, “I knew I had met you before.”

That’s weird. You and Sollux weren’t even on speaking terms until a few days ago. You didn’t think anyone had associated you with him, even just as his roommate. “Yeah, but I don’t remember ever bein’ formally introduced.”

“Alright then, I’m Kanaya Maryam. It’s nice to finally make your official acquaintance.”

“Likewise,” you scoff. 

She adds, “I believe I saw you a few weeks ago when I picked Sollux up for a party.”

Now that she mentions it, you do remember. You were on your bed doing homework, and Sollux was passed out on the desk, as usual. When she knocked, he was thoroughly unprepared for any sort of party, so she came into your dorm while she waited for him to frantically get ready. The two of you awkwardly waved hello, and you put your headphones in to avoid what would inevitably be even more awkward small talk. She pulled out a book; you didn’t bother to look at the title.

“Didn’t he end up wearin’ a Skyrim T-shirt or somethin’ stupid like that?” you ask, still remembering the night you first saw Kanaya.

She mused, “I couldn’t really tell, as he refused to take his hoodie off the entire night.” She thinks for a moment before adding, “He also did not leave a chair in the corner for most of the time, so you can understand why I have not appeared to take him to any more parties, or things which are party-esque in nature.”

You scroll a little bit further in your history reading, an essay about the Vietnam War, and reply, “Yeah, that sure sounds like him.”

“Maybe in the future, you could attend parties in his place. You know, if you would like to.”

You nod. “Well, you know where to find me.” That was a little bit of an unexpected invitation, but not entirely unwelcome. Feferi has been urging you to make more friends, anyways. Kanaya would be a welcome addition. However, the text message you get is entirely unwelcome.

“HEY ARE YOU REALLY NOT COMING BACK”  
“COME ON NEPETA AND I WERENT MAKING FUN OF YOU I SWEAR”

“yeah okay and im the queen of france”

“IM NOT THAT MUCH OF AN ASSHOLE OKAY?”  
“I MEAN I AM BUT NOT ABOUT THAT KIND OF THING”

“fuck off im havvin a great time wwith my best friend kanaya here”

“WAIT HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW KANAYA?”

Man, what is it with Kar and not introducing you to his friends? You actually feel a little bit insulted at this.

“me and kan are bffs”  
“she likes muted sports games and borin ass books”

“OKAY WHATEVER YOU SAY ERIDAN”  
“YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THAT YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND HAS COME UNINVITED TO OUR CHICK FLICK MARATHON UNDER THE CONDITION THAT WE WATCH SCOTT PILGRIM INSTEAD OF CLUELESS”  
“WELL APPARENTLY HE WAS INVITED BY YOU”  
“TO MY DORM”

“wwait really”  
“he said he wwouldnt come”

“WELL HERE HE IS ASSHOLE”  
“AND I WILL NOT TELL HIM ABOUT YOUR OBVIOUS AND FRANKLY A LITTLE BIT PAINFUL MUTUAL FEELINGS”  
“BUT IM NOT TOO SURE ABOUT NEPETA”

“wwhat the hell kar she wwouldnt”

“I DONT KNOW SHES ALWAYS GOT HER HAND ON THAT NOTEBOOK OF HERS”  
“YOU BETTER GET BACK HERE BEFORE THIS INSUFFERABLE ASSHOLE FEST SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL”

“kar you are bein just the wworst right noww”

“HEY IM TRYING TO BE THE GOOD GUY HERE”  
“JUST COME BACK”

“goddamnit fine”

You sigh and stuff your dying phone back into your front pocket. Before rushing off, you nod at Kanaya. “Nice finally meetin’ you or whatever,”

She smiles at your ineloquence. “My pleasure. I only lament that our meeting had to be so brief.”

“Yeah, well, you can blame Karkat Vant-ass for that one.”

You’re surprised how well she takes to your crude pun, letting out a genuine laugh. “Tell him hello for me, will you?” You decide that Kanaya Maryam is not so bad.

You nod, and head back to the stairs.

***  
The first thing you hear upon entering is, “Thank God! The prince has finally graced us with his majestic presence!”

“I’ll leave again, you prick,” you reply, scanning the room. Nepeta has retained her position on the floor. However, she has moved from chips and popcorn to a hot fudge sundae in a Styrofoam bowl. Karkat is still on the couch, sitting next to none other than the Mage of Complete Bullshit himself.

As you go to sit on the floor, Karkat stops you. “Dude, there’s room on the couch.”

You give him a weird look. “Then why the hell did you make Nep sit on the floor?”

“Mr. Ampurra!” scolds Nepeta from below, “I resent your implication that I am not exactly where I want to be!”

Sollux jokes, “I promise I don’t smell weird. I even took a shower this morning.”

Nepeta calls, “Just sit on the goddamn couch!”

Lord, this must be the most aggressive form of human shipping you have ever had the misfortune of experiencing. You tentatively squeeze as a third person onto a couch that was clearly meant for no more than two people.

Karkat, from the middle, says, “Okay, yeah, this won’t work.” He slides promptly on the floor next to Nepeta. She nudges his shoulder like they planned this or something. You really do hate this trend of people knowing more about you than you do. The way Sollux does this dumb little smirk makes you think he was in on it, too.

After all, Nep has a really itchy finger when it comes to that God forsaken shipping book.

The movie progresses almost wordlessly. It’s sort of funny, you guess, but not your favorite. You think you would enjoy it more if it were one of those authentically cheesy romcoms that you’ve grown to love, but you can see how it was a suitable compromise. There’s some romance but there’s also fight scenes and video game references. Of course, out of everyone, Nepeta seems to be the most into it. You think Feferi might like this movie, too. It reminds you of something the two of you would watch after she had a bad breakup, and you don’t quite know why.

By about the third evil ex you continue to do your history reading on your phone. By the fourth, you ask Karkat to summarize it for you. You’re not usually such a delinquent, but this weekend provided some… extenuating circumstances. You’re quite sure that your professor won’t even ask you about it.

After a while longer, you don’t resent Karkat and Nepeta and their dumb couch plot that they may or may not have made. You are actually a little bit thankful. If you had sat on the floor, you wouldn’t get to look at Sollux Captor so easily and inconspicuously. You would’ve had to crane your neck all around everytime you wanted to see him do something, and that wouldn’t have worked. He smiles at most of the funny parts. Nepeta and Karkat are pretty big on laughing, but he just smiles. It’s so brief you would miss it if you didn’t know exactly when to look. Then, there are some parts where he furrows his eyebrows at the screen and leans forward. There are some parts where he leans back on the couch and fiddles with a strand of curly hair. He looks very nice when he thinks that no one is watching. However, this is a conclusion that you had come to a very long time ago.

In this moment, it kind of feels like everything else has melted away. You don’t care about Cronus or homework or even Karkat and Nepeta sitting on the floor. You don’t care about the movie; you only care how the movie is making Sollux smile sometimes and scrunch his eyebrows. You care about how his hair is never neat and his nerdy t-shirts. You care about the snowmen you built and the stories he’s told you. Most of all, you care about he kissed you last night and how it may not have been as platonic as he claimed it to be. You’re brought back to that night when you thought about how much you wanted to be lame and put your arm around him. This time, though, you actually do it. You don’t even know why. You don’t pretend to yawn or stretch, you just do it.

Sollux doesn’t decide to make a big deal about it; he just sort of lets it happen. It’s probably because there are other people in the room. You’ve taken it that he doesn’t like being the center of attention, even among four people. Probably especially because there’s four people, because he wouldn’t want Karkat to start yelling or Nepeta to add this to her dumb shipping logue that she probably keeps in her sock drawer. In that case, you feel a little bit guilty about it.

After a few minutes, though, he leans his head onto your shoulder. You had always sort of understood the appeal of having a tall boyfriend, but it’s only now that you understand the appeal of filling that role yourself. Not that you’re anywhere near dating, but it’s nice to feel someone lean against you. It’s nice to feel protective, and needed for something. It’s just really comforting to feel so important, even if it’s only to one person. You feel an incredible warmth radiating from the places where he leans against you. Eventually, you notice that he’s fallen asleep.

You wonder, to be completely blunt, if it is possible to fall in love with someone without saying saying any words. Just being near them, watching them work and smile and just exist.

That’s a dumb question. Of course it’s possible. The two of you have been doing just that for months.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey yo Sleeping Beauty, it’s almost midnight.” You’re violently jolted awake to a foreign set of hands shaking your shoulders, “I mean it’s cool if you wanna stay on my couch or whatever but if I were you I might want to head back to my own room. Which is here. This is my room so if you want to leave or something-”

 

“What the hell? I’m up. I’m up.” You don’t even remember falling asleep in Karkat’s dorm- you must have been exhausted. “Where’d Sollux go?”

 

You don’t get a clear view of the guy since the room is dark. However, he’s not Karkat, so he must be the fabled roommate ‘Douchebag Dave’. Karkat’s nicknames finally makes sense, because this guy is rambling on and wearing sunglasses indoors. Indoors at night. You glance over to their bunks and figure that Karkat must be asleep. Nepeta and Sollux must have left.

 

“Who the hell is Sollux?”

 

“The skinny Indian guy? How long ago did he leave?” You sit up and try to stretch your neck. It cracks and makes Strider cringe.

 

He shakes his head and throws a backpack on the floor by the couch. “I don’t know, dude. I just walked in here to find some stranger knocked out on my sofa. I don’t want to be like your mom here but you should probably get your drunk ass back to your own dorm.”

 

“I ain’t drunk,” you say, getting up. You feel to make sure that your keys and cell phone are still in your pocket. “Nice meetin’ you, or whatever.”

 

“Yeah, I guess, man.” Dave throws his jacket and keys onto the couch; you leave before he removes any more clothing. It dawns on you that you never even told him your name. No matter, if he cared he’d ask Karkat in the morning.

 

You’re a little pissed that no one woke you up before midnight on a goddamn school night. If you had to guess, Nepeta probably thought it was too cute and prevented it. Her innocent shipper’s heart has put you into quite a unique predicament. The fact that Sollux didn’t wake you up probably means that he was too damn embarrassed to look at anyone and ran out of Karkat’s dorm as soon as possible.Great. Or, as Feferi would say, Fintastic. You briefly think about slamming your dumb head into one of the hooks sticking off of the wall. Yeah, that would be nice. 

 

You actually have quite a few texts from Fef piled up. You feel guilty for neglecting her and resolve to message her in the morning. There’s also a sure to be angry voicemail waiting from your father, but that can wait until further notice. By further notice, you mean indefinitely.

 

As you stand outside of your dorm room’s door, for some reason hesitant to open it, you decide to check if Cronus messaged you one last time. Of course he hasn’t. Before you can get on his blog to send him another message, your phone dies. Maybe it’s for the better; two messages would have been desperate.

 

You don’t know what you were expecting, but Sollux is just sitting at the desk coding on his laptop like usual. After all, you only put your arm around him for God’s sake. Perhaps you just wish he was being as much of a nervous wreck as you are about this whole ordeal. “Hey,” you announce casually. Well, as casually as you can. Your friends do not tend to consider you as an especially casual person. You are more accustomed to words like ‘high-strung’ and ‘uptight prick’. 

 

“Your brother deleted his stupid blog,” Sollux says bluntly, without looking at you. You think you sense a bit of sadness if his voice, if not that then sympathy.

 

“Wait, what the hell?” you ask. You’re taken aback. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t do that just to avoid you, would he? Oh, of course he would. You suddenly feel like you’re the worst person in the world, even though he’s the one avoiding you. You feel like real shit.

 

Sollux scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, I thought I’d see if he posted anything while ignoring you, but uh. It was gone. Sorry about that, man.”

 

“It’s alright,” you say, plugging your phone into the wall. “I guess I should go to sleep ‘n move on with my life now.”

 

“Listen,” he replies, opening a new window of chrome, “I can try to find him again. It wasn’t very hard the first time. He probably has other social media or he made-”

 

You shrug, and sit back on his bunk. “No I mean, if he doesn’t want to talk to me then I shouldn’t track him down I just would’ve thought-” You feel a wave of inexplicable sadness wash over you, and the only thing you can do to keep from crying is to stop talking. You do not want to cry in front of Sollux Captor and you don’t quite know why. Maybe it’s because you like feeling like you have someone to protect, rather than being protected all the time. You’re not drunk this time so you have no excuse.

 

“ED are you okay? It’s alright if you’re not I mean-”

 

“Don’t tell me what’s alright,” you snap.

 

He gets up from the desk and walks awkwardly to sit by you. You’re just a blubbering mess by this time. “Yeah, I know, I just,” he takes a deep breath, “I know what it’s like to feel like someone left you.”

 

“C’mon, Sol, no you don’t.” You sniff, “your life seems great. You’ve got this adorable brother, and friends who don’t hate you, a girl waitin’ for you back home, parents who actually give a fuck about ya’ and-”

 

He cuts you off, pointing to the scar across the back of his right hand. “You know how I got this, ED?”

 

You shake your head.

 

“Drove my first fucking car right into a semi. That was all I got, a goddamn scar on my right hand. Do you know what Mituna got?”

 

“Sol how would I-”

 

“Permanent brain injuries.” He runs through his hair with his scarred hand. “It’s not your fault, Eridan. Just remember that when people slam the door in your face and when people change… it’s not your fault. It didn’t happen for any good reason, but it sure as hell wasn’t my fault. Cronus leaving isn’t because of you, ED.”

 

You try to interject, “Sol I had no idea you were-”

 

“I don’t know why I had this crazy idea that Aradia would wait for me. It’s not like we were in a relationship or anything, I mean, she just kissed me. She kissed me once in high school, but it made me think we were soul mates. Can you believe that? Me, Mr. Life-has-no-meaning Captor. I should be really happy for her now that she has a boyfriend, shouldn’t I?”

 

Okay, now he’s crying and it’s starting to trip you up. Maybe you had Sollux Captor all wrong. “But that’s not your fault,” you offer.

 

“Of course it’s not. It’s not my fault.” You feel as if that’s some sort of mantra that he repeats to himself, or that a therapist told him to repeat after his car accident. You wonder what it’s like to live with such looming guilt. “If Cronus doesn’t want you in his life, that’s his fucking loss, you know? You’re a pleasure, Eridan. A real class-A delight. You’re the kind of guy a girl would want to bring home to her parents.”

 

You wipe away your own tears, which seem to pale in comparison. Now you laugh a little bit. “C’mon Sol, I’m not that great.” God, he’s bawling his eyes out and you’re fishing for compliments.

 

“Oh,” he says, “you don’t even know. You’d go to a girl’s house, and I bet you’d know all the names of the fancy wine they served. Then you’d tell some charming stories and incorporate some useless military trivia and tell them what a peach their daughter is. You’re like every parent’s dream. It’s Cronus’ loss. If he doesn’t want you in his life, he’s dumber than Karkat Vantas.”

 

His sly grin lets you know that maybe his mental breakdown will remain brief. You would hate him for upstaging you if it didn’t actually make you feel a lot better. “Thanks, Sol.” You look away. “Y’know, I bet this Arabia girl doesn’t know what she’s missin’ either.”

 

He scoffs, “Don’t make me be bitter at her. She’s still one of my best friends. She had no obligation to date me.”

 

“Of course she didn’t have an obligation. I’m just sayin’ she passed up someone really fuckin’ great. She’d be lucky to date you, Sol.”

 

“You’re sweet,” he mutters. He doesn’t flinch when you put your arm around him. Is this your thing now? Fighting and crying and putting your arm around him? You don’t care. You don’t think that you would mind if it was. “Lucky, huh?”

 

You nod, leaning against the wall. “The luckiest.”

 

“Cronus or anyone else would be lucky to know you, too, ED. I bet he’ll come around some day,” Sollux insists, wiping his face.

 

“We should do something,” you say half awake, half dreaming. You’re dreaming of travelling the world and playing dumb games and getting closer to Sollux Captor than you have gotten to anyone else. You think you could do that, with him. Maybe you could go on a trip with Feferi or even Karkat, but Sollux is someone that you want to take around the world. No, you want to show him the world, not just take him there. And you’d never get tired of just looking at him, or hearing him talk with your arm around his shoulder.

 

Cronus told you that he had met girls like that. There were some, he said, that you’d just want to fuck ‘n be done with, but then there were some that you could just look at for hours. The fucking part didn’t even matter if you could just be close to them or touch their hand or something. He said you’d be lucky to come across one, maybe two in a lifetime. Sollux makes you think that maybe, just maybe, Cronus Ampora wasn’t as full of bullshit as he seemed.

 

He laughs, “Dude, we have class tomorrow. I don’t want to be dead.”

 

You smirk. “Then just trust me on this one, okay?”

 

He nods as if agreeing to something you haven’t even done yet, like he understands. Of course he understands, this is as cliche as shit like this gets. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

You’re second kiss isn’t like you’re first, because it’s planned, yet spontaneous. The first was stiff and one sided. This one is the product of a night long mutual build up. Once it’s happening, though, the both of you just sort of melt into it. You’re both clumsy and ill-prepared, but that makes it somehow better. It makes it organic and comfortable, like everything is okay. It makes you feel like nothing is your fault and everything will just end up alright.

Everything is very, very alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay I know before I mentioned sollux eridan internet friendship for my next fic but get this  
>  trollcops murder mystery  
> maybe side erisol if that's something the masses want but sollux and tz would be the two main characters


	10. Chapter 10

“Remember when you said that we should go do something?” you hear from the bunk below you. You would be upset that he had woken up if you had actually gotten to sleep in the first place. The only thing you can do is replay frames from your night over and over in your mind.

 

“Mmhmm?” you ask, drowsy and voice wavering. You roll over to check your phone; it’s two-thirty in the morning.

 

“Well, we should.” After a pause he continues, “Do something.”

 

You sit up, half-annoyed, half-excited. “Like what? It’s the middle of the night!” You have so many rational reservations to his request, but you’re pretty sure at this point you’d follow him to the end of the Earth. 

 

“Let’s go back up to the lake,” he suggests. You hear him shuffle, like he’s already getting out of bed. Of course, it would be very uncharacteristic of you to say no now. You don’t actually think you’re physically capable of saying the word.

 

You feel around the side of your bed for your glasses. Once you find them, you glance out of the window. It’s snowing again, but just a little bit. It’s not a blizzard anymore, just the pretty kind of snow that you’d see in the beginning of a movie. Maybe God’s up there making a snow cone, you think, like you used to think when you were very small. That’s what your mother told you, until you learned that it was science and everything like God crying and angels bowling was just bullshit. You make your way down to the floor of your dorm room. “Yeah, sounds good. It looks cold as shit, though.”

 

“It’s fine,” Sollux says, pulling on that stupid fucking bee hat, “just wear a heavy coat.” You can tell he’s just so excited about whatevers stupid thing he must have planned. What, is he going to push you into the lake? He can’t do that, it’s frozen over! You’re slowly beginning to realize that this guy is usually a lot more sincere than he lets on, and you like that. Behind that sarcastic-prick mask he’s actually really sweet. Maybe none of this is a trick at all and he genuinely likes spending time with you. What a thought!

 

“Okay,” you respond, pulling your coat over your pajamas, “you too, Sol. What exactly are you tryin’ t-”

 

“Shut up,” he whispers, pulling on your arm. You notice that he holds you by the wrist, and not your hand, but he doesn’t let go after the two of you leave your dorm room. He just keeps holding on to your wrist like the village idiot.

 

“Christ, it’s cold,” you mutter as he drags you outside. You take a moment to note that your snowman is still standing strong in front of the building. It makes you happy when you see it, in that intangibly nostalgic kind of way. You blow air out of your mouth, taking a drag of your fake cigarette. The sky’s so clear that you can see your breath a few seconds after it blows past your mouth.

 

Sollux scoffs, “you’re so weird.”

 

You respond defensively, “If I wasn’t weird life’d be fuckin’ borin’.” That’s something Fef’s drilled into your head. All that everyone’s different, everyone’s special shit. It’s raised your self confidence, sure, but you can’t say you don’t resent her for it a little bit. You sound like a kindergarten teacher, if said kindergarten teacher would profane language with his students on a regular basis.

 

“Yeah,” Sollux says through a laugh, “I guess your right.”

 

You can see the moon clearly tonight, and the stars. You’ve always really loved looking at the stars. They’re like the windows to another world, another place. So foreign, yet so constant. They are the same stars that all of your ancestors saw on clear nights, and they’re the same stars that all of your ancestors will see long after you are gone. In this instant, it seems to you almost indecent that something as flawed and fleeting as a human being should be giving names to something as permanent as the stars.

 

“Eridanus,” says Sollux blankly.

 

“What the hell kind of a nickname is that?” you respond, frankly, a bit offended. You pull your wrist away from him and he lets go.

 

He shakes his head. “No, I mean, the constellation you’re looking at up there.” A smile curls onto his lips, “It’s named Eridanus.”

 

“Oh,” you say, relieved that you still get to be called ED. “I wasn’t lookin’ at any constellations. I was just lookin’ at all of them, I guess.”

 

“Oh,” he repeats. After a moment more of walking he takes your wrist again. “I’ll show you. It’s your namesake, after all.” He takes it just a moment too late for it not to be awkward, but you don’t care. It’s not like there’s anyone here to impress. It’s just the two of you out here, so you like it when he puts his fingers on yours and traces over a jumble of stars. They’re nothing, just stars. For his sake, though, you pretend you see the river Eridanus. You pretend you give a fuck about what a bunch of ancient assholes who didn’t even invent deodorant yet thought about a random conglomeration of stars. It makes him happy when you do. You won’t even remember what Eridanus looks like tomorrow morning when you’re dying from exhaustion. You hope, though, that you’ll remember how his eyes lit up when he talked about something he really loved. He’s not even wearing those stupid glasses; he forgot them at the door.

 

You also pretend, for both of your sakes, that you don’t notice when he slips his fingers into yours and keeps them there. It’s not like you don’t want that, and there’s no use to make him feel weird about it.

 

“Tell me something,” Sollux says, making some sort of point of not looking at you. 

 

“What?”

 

“You know, just tell me about something. Something you like.”

 

“Somethin’ I like?” You smirk, “On June 6th, 1944 allied forces landed on the beaches in Normandy, France with the goal of-”

 

“Okay, no,” he says, shaking his head, “Uh, no. I know you like war history shit or whatever that was supposed to be. Never mind.”

 

“No, okay,” you sigh, “If you wanted to know somethin’ about me, I really like all that Harry Potter kind of shit. It’s real stupid, fake as hell too, I know, but yeah that’s something I like.”

 

“I know you know it’s fake, ED. It’s not stupid. I mean, I like constellations but I don’t believe in zodiacs and mythology and shit.”

 

“Well,” you say, rubbing the back of your neck, “I was still kind of waitin’ for my Hogwarts letter ‘till I was about 15. It was pretty bad for a while.”

 

“It’s fine,” he assures you through a stifled laugh, “Everybody was.” You notice that a lot of snow had built up on his hat, and for some reason you’re concerned about it getting wet. It seems to you that anything his brother got him would be pretty special to him. He points out to the lake, glistening and frozen over. “We’re here.”

 

“And?” you ask.

 

“C’mon,” he coaxes, pulling you onto the ice. “You remember how I talked about my friend Terezi?”

 

“Mhmm,” you say, vaguely remembering the name. You reluctantly step on the frozen lake behind him.

 

“I don’t know if I said she was my neighbor growing up, but we used to live by this little stretch of woods. It was like some shit you’d see in a horror movie; this nerd and this law-crazed blind girl running around in some shady woods. During the winter we’d always go by the pond in the woods and we’d try to skate and slide on it. It was so fun, ED.” He takes off on the ice, going for just a few inches and dragging you along. You hope, for the sake of your safety, that this thing is as frozen as it looks. You suppose you may have guessed incorrectly when you guessed that he had an aversion to things like ice skating. Perhaps it’s you who is reluctant.

 

His hand has remained fairly warm, despite his lack of gloves. You can see the shape of the two of you reflected in the ice, just skirting along, skating. Not quite skating, but doing something skating-esque. The light from the yellow moon makes it all look a bit like a painting. Dark, surreal, and soft around the edges. The ice looks especially like something an impressionist might paint; it’s muted and blotchy and somehow abstract. You remember once, going to the art museum down in Chicago, and seeing a painting by Monet. You could only make out the picture when you were far away, because when you got too close it all looked like arbitrary splashes of paint. You can’t quite figure out how the night looks comparable, except that all these brushstrokes, the stars, the ice, the moon, his mismatched eyes and shoes, all seem so deliberate. For a moment, you forget how cold it is and you forget that you do not believe in God. It’s all too brilliant for you, all the colors are too distinct, the patterns the wrinkles make on your hands too complicated. It’s all just too goddamn beautiful to be an accident.

 

That feeling goes away the first time you fall on your ass. Life’s nice, but not that fucking nice. Sollux laughs at you, but he helps you up. You curse at him, looking down at the ice. When you look at it from the right angle, it’s sparkling. 

 

When you’re gliding on the ice again, he starts to tell a story about summer camp and his friend Terezi. It’s nice, but you don’t exactly comprehend it. Maybe it doesn’t have to matter that Cronus doesn’t want to talk to you, or your parents don’t want to celebrate Thanksgiving. Maybe none of that matters. You’re here right now, alive, and it doesn’t have to matter that Aradia wouldn’t date him or that his brother got hurt in a car crash. That wasn’t his fault.

 

You fall down again, but bring Sollux down with you. It’s out of spite, no question about it.

 

Before he yells at you, you kiss him. Square on the lips, and he does it back. “I was thinkin’,” you begin, scratching the back of your neck, “we should go on a real date sometime. Or not, I mean it ain’t like-”

 

He cuts you off, and essentially answers your question, by kissing you again. “It’s too fucking cold out here,” he says, pulling you up.

“Really?” you muse, a smirk spreading across your face, “I didn’t even notice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this was a good place to cut it off! I was really running out of ideas and I think they were getting a little too OOC for me :( If you guys really want I might add some one-shot companion fics or something but I think this is it for the main fic (I even did the little ending thing incorporating the title)  
> ANYWAYS I hate having long notes but since this is the end of a fic (and the beginning of anew TROLL COPS AU) I'm going to do a long one-  
> basically im pretty excited and have written like 5 chapters but I have no title and I think the ending im planning is going to be kind of unsatisfactory. If anyone who doesn't mind knowing the ending wants to private message me (can you even do that on this site) and give me their quick opinion thatd be so nice of you


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